'No one will tell me I'm not allowed to sing here'

Sara performing in Belfast city centre before Christmas - in Iran, her opportunities to play freely in public were limited

When Sara fled Iran earlier this year, she left everything behind - her husband, her family and music.

A talented musician and teacher in her home country, she wondered if she would play a guitar again, sing or find a place to tell her story.

Seven months, and thousands of miles later in Belfast, she's picked up a guitar again - and has found that her story has taken another turn.

"My disaster had turned to a miracle," she says.

"It was the disaster of my life because I say: 'Oh my God, I can easily play'. It's OK for me to sing here and no one will tell me you're not allowed to sing. They say: 'OK, play, sing, do something, help other people'.

"I was searching for this in my own country - but I found it here."

Sara is not her real name, we're using it to protect her family in Iran.

But what we can say is that she is someone with a talent befitting the six-string legends that inspired her playing - Joe Satriani, Yngwei Malmsteen, our own Gary Moore.

She speaks easily about bands she loves, like Metallica, and even shouts out Westlife, her favourite teenage group and the unlikely inspiration for her first picking up a guitar after seeing Kian Egan playing one in a music video.

It's less easy to speak about why she left Iran - Sara can't fully say what happened, but does say her status as a female musician put her at increased risk.

Now, this Christmas, she's performing in public, having played a set at Belfast's new cultural space at the former Tesco Metro site.

And she's helping to lead a new guitar club for people like her - asylum seekers, living in a Belfast hotel - using instruments donated by the public.

The club, which is being organised by the charity Beyond Skin as part of its musicians/artists at risk resettlement scheme, had its first meeting over the Christmas period, with other clubs planned for other Belfast hotels and areas including Newtownards and Cookstown in January.

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Salih Ali, a 26-year-old Kurd who left Syria in 2020, is looking forward to taking part.

He doesn't play the guitar but loves poetry, and remembers writing and reading while watching his family's sheep after school as a boy.

"Music is the food of souls," he says.

"We have come here, we don't know the culture, we don't know a lot of people and it can be hard to communicate, but music can help us do that."

While hotels like Salih's are places of sanctuary, they can also be lonely and isolating.

Learning the guitar will be new for Salih Ali, but he said it's all about finding ways to connect with other people

Asylum seekers cannot work while their application is being processed and often find themselves sticking to their rooms, with little to do and a language barrier preventing them from meeting new people.

"In the hotel, people are trying really hard," he said. "We are staying here until the Home Office decide, and we must be patient.

"But it is better for us to have activities. I play football, I play basketball. We are mostly staying in our rooms, so the club will be great."

'A guitar can change someone's life'

Sara says she "felt lost in that first month" in Belfast and was very lonely.

"I was frightened and I was afraid of everything, but I was invited to a friendship club and that really helped me.

"I told them I was a guitarist and a teacher in Iran, and they asked me to play."

The request was scary. In Iran, Sara was limited in how or what she performed. She wasn't allowed to sing.

But after a few weeks in the hotel, she had the chance to play guitar.

"I felt like I had something to hug. It was an amazing feeling. It really is precious, giving a guitar to somebody. It's so simple and easy and you can change someone's life, with just a guitar."

So she played, asked people not to take photos - and was surprised to find that people were happy to let her play freely.

She said the ability to play and perform not only helps cope with trauma, it's also empowering.

That's the essence of the guitar club, said Darren Ferguson, who heads up Beyond Skin. It's all about "creating spaces for people to come together to have conversations".

"They may not agree on politics or what football team they like but they'll talk about other stuff, work through the challenges. We've always used music and arts as a tool for that dialogue."

Guitar technician Leif Bodnarchuk is the man helping to supply instruments for the clubs

Any guitar club needs guitars and that's where Canadian-born guitar technician Leif Bodnarchuk - or Leif B - comes in.

A former roadie for the likes of Ash, Bloc Party and Leonard Cohen, he was working in his Belfast city centre workshop when a woman came to see him about an instrument. He noticed she had fingers missing and a heavy accent.

"I didn't know her story but I just felt like she must've been through all sorts. She wanted to pay for the guitar and I felt like such a jerk, so I put out an appeal on Facebook for a spare guitar, got one, fixed it up and gave it to her.

"I thought that it was just really easy so maybe I can do more."

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He reckons he'll have sanded, polished and refurbished about two dozen of them by the end of the year. And, after he got in touch with Darren, they're all going to facilitate the guitar clubs.

"The response has been 100% positive," he added.

"People arrive here often with just the shirt on their back, anything that you can do it make things easier is worth doing.

"People have so many guitars kicking about in garages, in corners. They can have another life. Even second hand, these instruments are worth something to somebody."

Beyond Skin were already searching for instruments for Afghan musicians resettled in Northern Ireland following the rise to power of the Taliban. For Darren, Leif's initiative and Sara's arrival was fate.

"She's meeting our needs rather than the other way round," he said.

With the club just getting started, Sara isn't totally sure of how she'll approach leading the group, but she does know what music can do for all those in the hotel stopover between their past and their future.

"Music heals and stops you thinking - and I think other people need that as well," she said.

"It's really hard, when I talk about it I want to cry but music helps me to stop thinking about it all the time - I can't erase it, but music helps."