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Music Beats the Blues in Tunisian Youth Project

Students attend a music class financed by the after-school club Tunisia 88, at the Haffouz secondary school in Tunisia's northern Kairouan region on February 2, 2024. (Photo by FETHI BELAID / AFP)
Students attend a music class financed by the after-school club Tunisia 88, at the Haffouz secondary school in Tunisia's northern Kairouan region on February 2, 2024. (Photo by FETHI BELAID / AFP)
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Music Beats the Blues in Tunisian Youth Project

Students attend a music class financed by the after-school club Tunisia 88, at the Haffouz secondary school in Tunisia's northern Kairouan region on February 2, 2024. (Photo by FETHI BELAID / AFP)
Students attend a music class financed by the after-school club Tunisia 88, at the Haffouz secondary school in Tunisia's northern Kairouan region on February 2, 2024. (Photo by FETHI BELAID / AFP)

The Tunisian town of Haffouz lies in an impoverished region known for high rates of joblessness and suicide, but every Friday traditional music and techno beats lift spirits in a dilapidated classroom.

Local children and teenagers come together in the afternoon to compose and rehearse music for a creative break from their bleak surroundings in the dust bowl of central Tunisia, Agence France Presse reported.

"It's a place of escape and to free yourself from the stress of school, to compose songs, organize outings, take part in events," said the club's elected leader, Eya Makhloufi, 16, who plays the electric organ.

The after-school music club project is called Tunisia 88 -- a reference to the number of keys on a piano -- and aims to get youngsters to develop their creative and leadership skills, AFP said.

It has engaged 5,000 to 10,000 youths a year across Tunisia's almost 600 schools since it was founded in 2017 by US concert pianist Kimball Gallagher and Tunisian entrepreneur Radhi Meddeb.

Local clubs put on concerts and compete nationwide for the best song and best event, all entirely organized by the students.

"They do everything on their own," even looking for sponsors, said Rabaa Mwelhi, coordinator of Tunisia 88 clubs.

The goal, she said, "is not really music itself but that they work as a team, learn to manage everyday stress, and work within a limited deadline".

Gallagher, 43, said the clubs cater to young musicians but also those interested in graphic design, videography and public communication with venues and art centers.

Each club, he said, "is a protected space where young people can express themselves, make their voices heard and convey very interesting messages: extreme emotions, the fulfilment of women, the state of the country, their dreams, the environment".

"For us, a student is not an empty glass to be filled, but a seed that we plant and which will grow if we offer the right conditions," added Gallagher, whose project provides instruments, teachers and training in musical creativity and leadership skills.

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NASA's Lucy Spacecraft Is Speeding toward Another Close Encounter with an Asteroid

This image from video animation provided by NASA in October 2022 depicts the Lucy spacecraft. (NASA via AP)
This image from video animation provided by NASA in October 2022 depicts the Lucy spacecraft. (NASA via AP)
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NASA's Lucy Spacecraft Is Speeding toward Another Close Encounter with an Asteroid

This image from video animation provided by NASA in October 2022 depicts the Lucy spacecraft. (NASA via AP)
This image from video animation provided by NASA in October 2022 depicts the Lucy spacecraft. (NASA via AP)

NASA’s Lucy spacecraft will swoop past a small asteroid this weekend as it makes its way to an even bigger prize: the unexplored swarms of asteroids out near Jupiter.

It will be the second asteroid encounter for Lucy, launched in 2021 on a quest that will take it to 11 space rocks. The close approaches should help scientists better understand our early solar system when planets were forming; asteroids are the ancient leftovers.

The upcoming flyby is a dress rehearsal for 2027 when Lucy reaches its first so-called Trojan asteroid near Jupiter.

Cranking up its three science instruments, the spacecraft on Sunday will observe the harmless asteroid known as Donaldjohanson. The encounter will take place 139 million miles (223 million kilometers) from Earth in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, so far away it will take 12 minutes for each bit of data to reach flight controllers in Colorado.

The paleontologist for whom the asteroid is named plans to be at spacecraft builder and operator Lockheed Martin’s Mission Control for all the action. He discovered the fossil Lucy in Ethiopia 50 years ago; the spacecraft is named after the famous human ancestor.

NASA’s Lucy will venture as close as 596 miles (960 kilometers) to this asteroid, an estimated 2 ½ miles (4 kilometers) in length but much shorter in width. Scientists should have a better idea of its size and shape following the brief visit. The spacecraft will zoom by at more than 30,000 mph (48,000 kph).

The asteroid is among countless fragments believed to have resulted from a major collision 150 million years ago.

“It's not going to be a basic potato. We already know that,” said lead scientist Hal Levison of Southwest Research Institute.

Rather, Levison said the asteroid may resemble a bowling pin or even a snowman like Arrokoth, the Kuiper Belt object visited by NASA's New Horizon spacecraft in 2019. The other possibility is that there are two elongated but separate asteroids far apart.

“We don’t know what to expect. That’s what makes this so cool,” he said.

There will be no communications with Lucy during the flyby as the spacecraft turns its antenna away from Earth in order to track the asteroid. Levison expects to have most of the science data within a day.

Lucy’s next stop — “the main event,” as Levison calls it — will be the Trojan asteroids that share Jupiter’s orbit around the sun. Swarms of Trojans precede and follow the solar system’s largest planet as it circles the sun. Lucy will visit eight of them from 2027 through 2033, some of them in pairs of two.

Lucy’s first asteroid flyby was in 2023 when it swept past little Dinkinesh, also in the main asteroid belt. The spacecraft discovered a mini moon around it.