Leaving home 

The news and social media are full of stories about people who are having to flee their homes to find a safe place to live. These people are ordinary people, who suddenly find they have no choice but to leave everything they know and love behind.  

Our value at the moment is compassion. This means we show sympathy love and care to those people who are having a harder time than us. We don't choose to show compassion because they are our friends and family, we choose to do it because we want to live by the Golden Rule: 'Treat others how you wish to be treated.  

Over the next few weeks we will listen to musicians who have written songs for and about Refugees. The songs send out messages of hope for those who are displaced from their homeland.  

Maya Youssef 'Syrian Dreams'

Maya Youssef began writing music after she fled Syria as a result of the Syrian Civil War. Since then she has travelled the world sharing her music, which she performs on the qanun. A qanun is a traditional Middle Eastern instrument with 78 strings which is plucked. Her music is rooted in Arabic classical tradition but also has moments of jazz, western classical and flamenco. 

‘As any Syrian will tell you, there is this overwhelming sense of loss and an overwhelming sense of grief. Because that world which existed before the war started, despite it naturally having problems, was a beautiful world with a booming economy, artistic scene, film festivals and visiting international artists, Damascus was the third safest city in the world. The loss of that world was heart wrenching and, in a way, steered me towards a universal concept of home. The main trigger that made me create Syrian Dreams was the Syrian war and the loss of my homeland. And it’s only by embarking on that spiritual journey of constant meditation and of finding home within God and within myself that I started to feel consolable and started to feel that I have my own home within me.’