‘It Was A Light in The Dark’ ’ (The Guardian, 3 Jan.2025) was published to mark The Guardian’s decision to make War Child one of its charity appeal partners for 2025. Sadly it does so by straying far from the truth.
When writing about War Child’s music projects in post-war Mostar (Bosnia Herzegovina) and the work of the Pavarotti Music Centre (PMC), The Guardian claims that the centre ‘still provides music lessons and therapy to children in the city.’ There is NO therapy carried out at the music centre and NO music lessons. The only two music activities in the building are the town’s music school which has nothing to do with the PMC and Mostar Rock School which rents space from PMC for their work. Indeed when rock school organise concerts in the building they have to pay PMC for that! I need to add that the Rock School is as near as you get to music activities which reflect the early ideals of the music centre (bringing everyone together with music).
I do not wish to criticise anyone at the PMC today - some of them remain my good friends - but they are in an insidious position, unable to work alongside the centre's founding ideals and are subject to political controls. That is a result of the removal of War Child support.
War Child itself withdrew their support for the Pavarotti Music Centre soon after The Guardian’s 2001 article which exposed wrongdoing in the charity, and was followed by Jon Snow’s Channel 4 interview with Rosie Boycott (then Chair of War Child trustees). I was subsequently sacked by War Child for being the ‘whistleblower’ and as a result I had to leave my job as first Director of the music centre.
The parlous state of the Pavarotti Music Centre soon followed as the centre not only lost War Child support, but that of the patrons, including Luciano Pavarotti, Tom Stoppard, David Bowie, Juliet Stevenson and Brian Eno, among others. War Child has refused any support for the music centre for over 20 years and Rob Williams, then War Child CEO (salary £118,000), asked me to refrain from media comments without making clear that that I have no connection to the charity.
In 2017 I wrote an article which The Guardian published about my experience of corruption in the charity which I had co-founded. A year later the newspaper published an article about Orhan (Oha) Maslo and his great work as Director of the Mostar Rock School.
In conclusion I think it wrong for War Chid to be favoured as a Guardian 'charity partner' on the misleading assumption that they are involved with music projects that have sadly long-since disappeared,
I would like very much not to have to engage in any of this. I am 80 years old and have been ill. But Mostar is part of my life, indeed part of my family. Those who live there, and continue to unite young people with music, deserve to be served by the truth. That truth is not in The Guardian's "It Was A Light in The Dark". The light is coming from another direction.
Everything I mention here is supported by Guardian articles. See the below Guardian links.
David Wilson
co-founder War Child
First Director Pavarotti Music Centre
Guardian articles
STARS QUIT CHARITY IN CORRUPTION SCANDAL
MY GUARDIAN ARTICLE ON WAR CHILD AND CORRUPTION
