A project in Limerick is using music to build bridges between academia and local refugee communities, writes Arminta Wallace.

Music, goes the old platitude, is a universal language. But is it really? The answer coming from Limerick is a resounding yes. Over the past three years Sanctuary, an innovative project run by the World Music Centre, at the city's university, and the Development Organisation for Refugees and Asylum-Seekers, a support group, has been using music to build bridges between academia and refugee communities.

Which, as Dr Helen Phelan of the University of Limerick explains, has been challenging, gratifying and hugely enjoyable. "Music is an incredible way for people to find ways to communicate," she says.

Obviously, because it bypasses language, it allows those who are still struggling with English to express themselves on their own terms. But making music is also a profoundly human activity - indeed, no human society ever studied by anthropologists has lacked music - and can work wonders in achieving a sense of community among people who are struggling with cultural dislocation of every kind.

"The 'refugee community' is not so much a community as a group of displaced people who lead very, very uncertain lives," says Phelan. "The process involved in seeking refugee status in Ireland is long and complex, and during that time an asylum seeker cannot work, has very limited access to education and is usually living in hostel accommodation.

"They can't do the normal things that any of us would do to assimilate, like going shopping, going to school, going to work. To try to get people to focus on the here and now when they don't know where they're going to be tomorrow can be very challenging."

Sanctuary has identified three ways to tackle these problems. One strand of the programme organises therapy-based projects for mothers with babies and toddlers, one of which included a sort of international exchange of lullabies and nursery rhymes; another creates partnerships between music and dance students from the university and musicians from a range of musical backgrounds; a third helps new cultural groups in the city to, as it were, sing their own song.

"So, for example, we have a choir called Elikya here in Limerick which specialises in music from the Congo, and we worked with the Russian Orthodox community to develop an expertise in Russian chant," says Phelan, who is co-ordinator of Sanctuary as well as director of the university's MA in chant and ritual song.

The programme is funded by the Higher Education Authority, but its inspiration, she says, came from DORAS. A registered charity, it is largely staffed by volunteers, who provide a range of services for asylum seekers in Limerick, from legal advice through informal English classes to a simple cup of tea. "A lot of the time it's a matter of getting to know people on the ground," says Phelan. "I'm on the board of directors, and I'll meet somebody who'll say, 'Oh, I'm from Turkey, and I play the saz.' "

To celebrate the partnership, raise funds for DORAS and generally have a ball, the university is hosting a benefit concert on Friday, which is Human Rights Day. It will feature a pan-African women's choir and a tabla player from Pakistan, as well as the aforementioned saz player, all of whom are now based in Limerick. Also taking part will be the university's gospel choir and traditional music and dance students from Ireland.

"One of the fears people often have about multiculturalism is that it's going to be a kind of grey-out, that traditional indigenous cultures will disappear," says Phelan. "In our experience the opposite is the case."

Donat Mabana was one of the first asylum seekers to arrive in Limerick when he came to Ireland from the Congo. "In the beginning we had a very tough time," he says. When he came across some fellow countrymen they came up with the idea of singing together. "Music was a way to make ourselves known and also to express our uniqueness," he says. "But we didn't have a way to make it happen. Then, in 2001, we got in touch with Helen."

Elikya, the group that resulted, is one of Sanctuary's success stories. Made up of a dozen singers from the Congo, Angola and Ireland, it has already recorded one CD, and another, a collection of Mass songs in the four languages of the Congo, is planned for next month. To Irish ears the songs are totally new yet oddly familiar. Take the Swahili Mwana Nkondo Wamungu. "The first two words mean 'lamb'," explains Mabana, "and Mungu is God. Wa is 'of'." So it's Swahili for Agnus Dei? "Exactly."

Cultural cross fertilisation is of personal as well as professional interest to Phelan, who grew up in the Bronx but has lived in Ireland since her Irish parents moved back, in 1981. "Last year we invited a children's choir from Chicago to Limerick. They were all children of first-, second-, third-generation Irish people," she says. "And they were singing with the children of some of the refugees here, who are now first-generation Congolese, Nigerian, whatever. They were all singing the Christy Moore song 'In the city of Chicago / when the evening lights are low / There are people dreaming of the hills of Donegal'. And I wondered, what will the children of these Congolese children be singing in Limerick, 20 years from now?"

The concert takes place at the Jean Monnet Theatre, at the University of Limerick, on Fridayat 8 p.m. Call 061-202575