Taihape taonga puoro artist Jerome Kavanagh has teamed up with UK musician Kevin Mark Trail to help people to connect with their community.
An accomplished taonga puoro (traditional Maori instruments) player, Kavanagh met Trail in London where they were both recording and performing a few years ago.
Trail has been living in New Zealand recently where he's released a solo album and worked with New Zealand group Sola Rosa.
The pair met up again and began discussing running workshops throughout the country aiming to encourage a sense of community through music, especially for younger people.
From that the Te Po Te Ao (from the dark to the light) workshop was born. "We're just looking at the power of music and culture and language," Kavanagh said.
The pair will travel the country and host workshops with various community groups. But while it will have a musical focus, it will also be about talking through life's struggles. New Zealand had one of the highest suicide rates on the world, Kavanagh said.
The workshops will teach songwriting while Kavanagh and Trail will share stories from around the globe. Participants will be encouraged to share their own stories through music. Music created in the workshops will be recorded to demo quality.
"Really, it's just spending time with those people and sharing those stories. We've both come from humble backgrounds." The catchcry of the workshop is "we're all the same inside".
The pair had piloted the workshops in Tauranga with a good response, Kavanagh said.
"We just want to help and understand. It's more about a human connection."
Kavanagh and Trail are running the programme off their own backs.
Kavanagh's music featured on Chris Tin's double Grammy Award-winning album, Calling All Dawns, and the Taihape man also played at New York's Carnegie Hall this year. Trail is a London-born Jamaican who has worked as a vocalist with Birmingham hip hop artist The Streets.