SHAI SHRIKI 

COLLECTS MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS FOR THE REFUGEES

In 2018, Shai took his first trip to Lesvos, a beautiful Greek island flooded with thousands of refugees. He didn’t take much with him… aside from a few ukuleles, shakers, guitars, flutes, and his dearly beloved oud. 

Music has always occupied an important seat at the table in Shai’s life. Born in Israel, with family from Morocco and his feet currently in Australia, he sings and writes in various languages taking his audience abroad with each song.

Between performing and teaching music, Shai celebrates life through song and dance, and the cultures of which he was raised ooze out of him in a gypsy-like manner. But what runs alongside this frivolity is his passion for connecting people and helping them understand each other.

“I don’t see the world as ‘we are all one and should all be the same,’” he said, “I don’t think we should all be the same, but we should be one in the way we accept each other. When you see a rainbow, it’s a rainbow. You don’t separate the purple from the green. You say, ‘Oh! A rainbow!’ When you see a person it should be just the same.”

As a boy, Shai experienced living in a place that was taken away from him. So when the refugee crisis broke out in 2015 — resulting in people fleeing from war in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond — Shai couldn’t stop thinking of the injustices and hardships the people must have been facing.

“People deal with illnesses, financial crisis, breakups —whatever. But when you are in your home — that place which is everything that makes you secure, makes you feel belonging — and suddenly a bomb lands and flattens that, you think, ‘I have to get out of here.’ You have to take off, and you have no idea where you’re going. You just go. That is the worst thing to experience.”

As he imagined the people being stripped from their rights and thrown around the globe, he thought,

‘What can I do? … Well, I play music… I have a little following… I know how to get people inspired and excited… I guess I can bring that all together.’

Basically, he gathered his skills and figured out how he could help.

Without a precise plan, he did some funding, collected donated instruments and, with his potpourri of skills, headed to the middle of the Mediterranean.

Lesvos is located right off the coast of Turkey. It was once seen as a place where long-time-locals spent their days eating grilled sardines on the sun-baked terrain and swimming in the clear Aegean water. Then, half a million refugees arrived. Prior to that the population of Lesvos was only about 85,000. The smallest village, with only 153 people, soon was no stranger to a flow of 3,000 new people each day. Lesvos quickly became the most overcrowded place in the world filled with people stuck in a limbo between countries who wouldn’t accept them.

Life no longer looked like grilled sardines and hot summer swims (in fact swimming was banned because of the possibility of people escaping). Instead, it looked like crowds of people, mounds of life vests, and a myriad of makeshift tents. 

As soon as Shai stepped foot onto the island, he could see the hardship on people’s faces and the heaviness in the way they carried themselves.

“They’re just trying to survive,” he said. “People with no future and nowhere to go because no one will take them. They can’t go back to their country because it’s being smashed by war and famine.”

While some of the locals shook their fists and demanded the refugees be sent away, others dropped everything to help. One couple who had grown up on Lesvos transformed their restaurant into a place where they could feed people free of charge. They called it ‘Home For All.’ The couple had been affected by the influx of people as much as everyone else, but instead of focusing on the problem, they focused on ways to help.

Shai realised that there were other people doing similar things to what he had thought of. All he had to do was jump on board. The generating and the planning had already been done. So he said to the locals,

“Tell me your goals and I will help however I can. If you need a hand with guitars, I can bring five or fifty.” 

While he got involved in other projects, he spent a lot of time each day around the outskirts of the camps with the instruments he collected in Australia. He interacted with those coming in and out by singing songs, making conversation, giving free music lessons and inviting people to ‘Home For All’ for meals, music events and jam sessions. Through all of this, he brought the culture of dance, music and clapping back to the island where those things had been lost. He created a space where joy was invited back again.

Before leaving Lesvos, Shai hosted a concert for all the people he had met and taught during his time on the island. Towards the end of the night he invited one girl up to perform a song that reminded her of home.

“Don’t worry about the vibe,” he said. “Just take us back to where you’re from. Take us home.”

The girl, nervous as she was, picked up the guitar and started to sing. Everyone in the room sat still and listened. She wasn’t far into the song when Shai, who was playing his oud alongside her, began to cry. Soon enough, everyone in the room joined him. When the song ended, the girl broke into tears. Everyone went and curled over her. They held her as she cried and cried, and they cried with her. 

“That was hard for them to do,” Shai said. “They had been holding everything back for so long. When you’re in hardship you have to hold a lot of energy. You have to keep going and stay positive because everyone around you is going through the same thing.”

Music, being the vulnerable thing it is, seemed to be the only thing that would crack them. The only means by which some of them felt free to express themselves. The girl’s song about home made them cry because finally, someone had spoken how they were all feeling. After she had sung, she sat in a circle of people and for hours, shared her story and her struggles.

For Shai, the most important thing in life is human connection. Any means to create it will do. His means was music.

“I wasn’t trying to change the world. I was just building tiny, little bridges wherever I went,” he said. 

One person got an instrument, and the next minute, they were sitting and playing together — that was success. The guitar that went to a boy outside the gates — that was success. The five ukuleles that went to a group of children — that was success. Those small parties where songs were shared — that was success. Those meals where stories were told around the table — that was success. All these moments, where people were brought together, where people felt free to express themselves —those were all tiny, huge successes.

Or as Shai put it, “Small in doing, huge in impact. Huge in doing whatever I could in each moment.”

And that’s Shai for you. He gets a badge for collecting instruments and taking the music to those who need it most.

P.S. He’s planning another trip to Lesvos. If anyone has any instruments they would like to donate — please do! Any help helps.