An offer to help a non-profit during the pandemic has resulted in a University of Guelph student being involved in the creation of a COVID safety song, which is now playing on public radios in Madagascar.
Lauren Chang is a fourth-year anthropology student who helped write the lyrics for the song Stop Corona, which is about a discussion between a boy and a girl.
“The boy is trying to convince her to come over, and she says no I can’t,” she said, “And basically, it’s that sort-of dialogue that teaches you the most important things about COVID and how to stay safe.”
She adds she wanted to make sure that whatever she created would be relevant and would sound like the music they have in Madagascar.
“There are limits to what I can do because I’m not from that continent and I don’t know very much,” said Chang.
“I spent a lot of time listening to different music, talking to people about popular music there, and trying to figure out a form that would fit.”
Along with providing the words, she said she also provided chord and melody suggestions.
All the lyrics to the song were translated into Malagasy, the country’s official language, by a volunteer at Planet Madagascar. Once the song was translated, professional musicians from Madagascar put together the final version of the song, which is now playing on the radio.
“What it ended up being is much bigger than I expected and very different from what I came up at in the beginning, which is amazing,” said Chang about her reaction to hearing the song for the first time.
“I’m so glad to have been able to work with, not directly, but work with these amazing musicians who transformed it into something that was their own and relevant to their music.”
Chang recalls becoming involved with the project after meeting a new U of G professor, Travis Steffens, the founder of an education and environmental conservation group called Planet Madagascar.
The two met at an introductory talk held by Steffens, and Chang said she became interested in the work his organization was doing.
“Before COVID happened, there were talks that maybe I could volunteer during the summer,” she said about the organization, “and after COVID happened, I reached out to say that I was still interested in being able to help.”
Chang is also involved with a group called Sex Education By Theatre, which has created a series of parody music videos to talk about different issues from gender violence, consent, COVID and more.
“He ended up seeing that, and he was really interested, she said, “and he was like, ‘oh maybe we can do something like that for the Madagascar context.’”
“So we ended up coming up with that project and now it’s playing over airwaves in Madagascar.”
Besides working with Planet Madagascar, Chang is also the founder of a group called Onions Don’t Cure Covid. Beginning as a research project for U of G, this group aims to identify misinformation about COVID-19 being spread through various social media channels, particularly on WeChat, to help people make more informed decisions. Their work can be found here.
“The idea behind both projects is to find different ways of conveying important information that may be more accessible, may be more exciting and may be more relevant to people’s lives and communities,” she said.
Looking to reach larger immigrant groups who may be susceptible to misinformation, Chang said the group is working on a vaccination education campaign.
“We just finished a small project where we asked people what questions they had about the vaccine, and now we’re coming up with some helpful infographics that try to combat some of the misinformation, and answer questions about the vaccine.” said Chang.
Reflecting on her experiences and work for this COVID safety song, Chang said she appreciates being able to work with all those involved.
“I’m glad that I was able to contribute in some way, but ... I don’t want to take too much credit for it,” she explains, “Because at the end of the day, it’s something that I had a hand in the process of creating, but I definitely did not do that all on my own.”
When asked if she would write another song about COVID safety in the future, Chang said she could be open to it if it fit with the demographic they want to reach.
To listen to the song, go to planetmadagascar.org.
