Wera Sæther skriver om historien bak arbeidet:

It started with my hearing old spiritual and subversive Baul songs at a pilgrimage place called Kenduli, north of Kolkata, in 1992. My conclusion: ”This form of music must not vanish.”

In 1998, hearing very poor Muslim women singing similar songs on an island in Northern Bangladesh, my conclusion was the same: ”This music must not vanish, and it is also mine.” But this singing will, of course, vanish if the deep feeling vanishes.

My question to myself, from 1998 onwards, has been how to nurture that deep feeling and help preserve the music. It had to be through the teaching of children. For that to happen, teachers and places were needed.

The wish to establish some sort of informal archive of what existed once upon a time co-existed, in me, with the main wish to preserve the music by having children learn it.

There is one way to do it. It has got to be collective.

Supported by other Norwegians, in 2004 I began my grassroots efforts in support of the regional song traditions as taught to Muslim and Hindu children in Northern Bangladesh.