Tunisia88: Transforming Youth Groups One Concert at a Time

By Kaju Roberto

On November 4, a remarkable group of young musicians from Tunisia – some of whom helped lead a grassroots movement that reached every public high school in their country – performed in Washington Square Park and at The Yale Club of New York as part of their first-ever U.S. tour. The performances featured original compositions, powerful cross-cultural collaborations, and a rare glimpse of what happens when young people are given the tools – and the trust – to lead.

The Tunisia88 Alumni Choir was born out of a revolution. In the years following Tunisia’s 2011 Arab Spring uprising, these students launched music clubs that are now in all 590 public high schools across 24 regions in Tunisia – places where student voices had rarely been encouraged. They wrote original songs, staged concerts, and created something lasting in a system that wasn’t built for them. Now, they’ve brought those stories, songs, and that spirit to American audiences for the first time.

Tunisia88, with 2,500 active members, is a Non-governmental Organization (NGO) started in 2015 by Juilliard-trained concert pianist Kimball Gallagher. Gallagher had been teaching music to high school students in Tunisia for a few years when he was approached by the Minister of Education of Tunisia who said, “I want to see a piano in every school.” The goal was to revive all the cultural clubs.

The tour was led by Gallagher, who founded 88 International, the nonprofit that helped support this movement. His own journey – crowdfunding his first piano (88 keys, 88 donors), performing at distinguished venues in 30 countries across seven continents – and turning performance into purpose – led to the founding of 88 International.

88 International’s Humble Beginnings
This all started when Gallagher – upon graduating from Juilliard – didn’t have a piano. One of his mentors said, “Why don’t you ask 88 people to sponsor each one of the keys?” The money raised from each key on the piano became an effort to buy a piano. It was the first time Gallagher really saw music, not only as something for performance and concerts, but as something that could build community.

88 International has become a global nonprofit that uses music to help young people essentially find their voice, build community, and lead their own positive change where they themselves live. That’s really why Gallagher built 88 International, to turn a sort of sense of personal impact and occasional intimate moments in concerts into more of a movement at some scale.

During an epiphany, Gallagher realized that as an individual artist, he could touch only a few lives at a time. But if he wanted to reach thousands at a much larger scale and to make a lasting change, it required structural partners, institutional partnerships, and some kind of vision that was far beyond one person.

“I had been working in Tunisia before the Arab Spring Revolution, and then throughout the revolution. I taught piano and songwriting. The classic way of having music clubs in Tunisia was with the teacher as the director of the club. We wanted to put the teacher as the facilitator – which in Tunisia was a big deal – and allow the students lead the clubs.” Gallagher said.

One or two particular songs became a spark for a national movement. With the Ministry of Education wanting to promote this program, Gallagher was able to bring in support and shape the curriculum.

How Tunisia88 became a Transformational Youth Music Program
Gallagher explained how Tunisia88 became a transformational youth music program. He said, “88 International needed an NGO partner for financial support. And through the Ministry of Education we did get that NGO partner – a Tunisian NGO called Action Solidarity Development. Then the European Investment Bank, and the U.S. State Department became involved, followed by the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Canadian Foreign Service and many private Tunisian supporters.”

“One of the very interesting things about this program, which is part of its self-sustaining mechanism, is that the alumni of the clubs run the majority of the content of our program. Now the old club members, who became university students, were trained to give training,” he continued.

“It took about three or four years. We started with a pilot program and then had a huge acceleration from 2019 through COVID to early 2021 where we went from something like 100 to 500 schools in about a year and a half. We have 78 training sessions a year all the different regions. We have song contests on a national scale. All of these activities are managed in a large part by a group called the Executive Alumni. It’s actually the Tunisian youth who are driving the engine of this.”

Washington Square Park and The Yale Club
It was a beautiful experience to be part of the outdoor and indoor concerts held at Washington Square Park and The Yale Club of New York.;

Gallagher and a small team of musicians and conductors guided 26 alumni choir members from Tunisia, Morocco, Senegal, Myanmar, and the Gambia. They sang songs represented by these countries in English and native languages. Gallagher accompanied songs in Swahili on piano. On at least one song, the choir was joined by a percussion player. The night ended with alumni from Yale joining the choir to sing the Yale alma mater. 

Tunisia88 toured universities in eight U.S. East Coast cities from October 30 through November 10 on its highly successful inaugural U.S. tour.  

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Kaju Roberto is an accomplished musician, singer/ songwriter, journalist, and an award-winning producer. He is the artist Rad Jet on Spotify