Source: The Rolling Stone Magazine / Author: ANDREA MARKS / Date: April 11, 2019

Portland guitarist and Widespread Panic writer Jerry Joseph started Nomad Music Foundation, a nonprofit that brings guitars and music classes to kids in conflict zones

Guitar lessons aren’t exactly a top priority in places like Northern Iraq, where thousands of Kurds and Arabs have been displaced by the war in Syria. But it’s what Portland musician Jerry Joseph can offer. Joseph, who has written for Widespread Panic and his own band, the Jackmormons, goes to refugee camps and gives guitar lessons to teenagers there. The results have been inspiring. “I think we’re connecting with these kids on a level where at least right now nobody’s actively trying to connect with them,” Joseph tells Rolling Stone, speaking from an Iraqi refugee camp in March, just weeks after his Nomad Music Foundation became an official nonprofit, which he runs with co-founder Charlie Freeman. Its mission? To bring instruments and teach music to people in conflict zones.