School of Music Alum Liz Shropshire’s Non-Profit Empowers Youth Impacted by War to Heal, Lead and Learn
When Liz Shropshire first came to college, she was planning to become a high school music teacher and softball coach. The summer before transferring to BYU, Shropshire arranged the music for a local Latter-day Saint production in Florida about church history. Through this experience, she discovered a passion for arranging music, motivating her to study music composition at BYU.
“I arranged for this little odd grouping of orchestra instruments that we had,” Shropshire said. “I loved it and that got me on the composition track.”
At one point, Shropshire was struggling with her coursework. She considered changing her major, but a friend asked her if she prayed before writing music.
“Praying before I wrote music changed everything. I started praying every day before working in the practice rooms. I won awards and got a scholarship.”
After graduating from BYU in 1984, Shrophire embarked on the Canada Halifax mission in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Upon her return, she decided to attend graduate school at the University of Southern California (USC), where she studied music composition for movies.
Shropshire spent years working in this field, but eventually pivoted to teaching a diverse range of subjects at a school for children with emotional and behavior disorders in the Los Angeles area. During this time, she began teaching private music lessons, building up clients and teaching music classes at a Catholic elementary school.
Shropshire was driving to the home of one of her private students and listening to the radio when a broadcast about the war in Kosovo came on.
“They were interviewing women living in refugee camps in nearby countries about missing family members and living in awful conditions,” Shropshire said. “All of their personal identification and records of land ownership had been stolen.”
Saddened by the suffering in Kosovo, Shropshire was determined to go and help in any way possible.
“I found this volunteer group online called the Balkan Sunflowers, which was going to Kosovo and helping the people in refugee camps. I asked if I could join them, and they accepted me as a volunteer.”
Shropshire would have to pay her own way to Kosovo and pay for housing once she was there. She was planning to help with basic tasks around the refugee camp, but a friend encouraged her to use her talent for teaching music to change lives.
“She told me, ‘Do what you do best and take a music program to these kids.’ My friends from church and I started doing fundraisers and contacting instrument manufacturers, and I ended up bringing about $5,000 worth of instruments.”
In the refugee camps, Shropshire taught children how to play the Irish penny whistle and harmonica. She originally planned to stay for three weeks, but ended up staying for six. Eventually, she had to go back to L.A. to continue working, but promised the children she would return.
“I had seen so much trauma in these children, but I had never seen them cry until I told them I was leaving. They said, ‘Liz, there are groups here that are rebuilding our homes, groups that are giving our families food, and we are so grateful for that. But this is the only thing for us, and you cannot take that away from us.’”
Without quite knowing how, Shropshire promised the children she would return.
After Shropshire shared this story at a fireside, members of her ward came together to help her start a nonprofit. The Shropshire Music Foundation, now known as Peace Through Music International, was formed that year in February 2000.
Peace Through Music International provides free music classes, instruments and books to children in refugee camps across the world, including locations such as Greece, Poland, Bangladesh and more. Classes are taught by teenage volunteers who instruct the children.
“Our programs are unique because they are all run by locals,” Shropshire said. “That is the goal for all of our programs everywhere — we want it to be their program.”
However, being a volunteer is not always easy.
“You have to learn not only how to play the instruments, but how to teach them to a group of 40 kids,” Shropshire explained. “But the volunteers are amazing and eager to learn and share this gift with the children.”
Shropshire notes that the long-term impact of war on children is feeling anger, while teenagers feel like nothing they do matters.
“A good 80-90% of the kids say they have lost their anger since starting this program. They all do better in school and continue their schooling, which is rare in post-war zones,” Shropshire said. “95% of our youth volunteers go to university and that is unheard of. They become parents, teachers, doctors, engineers, professional musicians and much more.”
Shropshire has been able to watch the children and teenagers who go through her program grow up and lead amazing lives.
“The kids in our program learn they have control over their future. Our teenagers see that what they do is changing the lives of the children and know that they are making a difference.”
According to Shropshire, empowering child and teenage victims of war protects them from becoming targets for extremist groups, kidnapping and human trafficking.
“It is all about helping these kids who have had no control over their lives to realize that they have the control to pick a future and to go for it,” she explained.
Shropshire says sharing her talents to help children and teenagers has been a beautiful gift.
“I have really seen these kids grow up to be amazing adults. It is really beautiful and incredible,” Shropshire said.
Shropshire credits her education for preparing her to start a non-profit, adding that learning how to write, arrange and conduct music at BYU has been a pivotal skill in her work.
“I learned how to start a business, be professional, write arrangements for really weird groupings of instruments and write music super fast,” Shropshire said. “Now, I write all of our music books. All these different parts of my education between BYU and USC prepared me for what I am doing now.”
Shropshire believes the world needs more students studying music and sharing their talents with others.
“Why should we go into music? Because music changes the world, and right now we need agents of change,” Shropshire said.
This summer, ten students from BYU-Hawaii will volunteer with Peace Through Music International in Poland. Shropshire hopes to involve more BYU students in the future.
Students who want to get involved can learn more at peacethroughmusicinternational.org.