Frances Ingram's partner, Garry Robilliard, was a passionate musician.
During his lifetime, he amassed a huge collection of instruments, including 15 guitars, clarinets and boxes of harmonicas and triangles.
Ms Ingram says they were everywhere.
"They were stored all through the garage, on the wardrobe, underneath the beds, through the house, and, when he died two years ago, I had no idea what to do with them all."
A friend suggested she donate them to Music for Refugees, a volunteer organisation that provides instruments to asylum seekers in detention centres.
Ms Ingram had no doubt her late partner would have approved, saying, as a generous man and passionate musician, he would have loved the idea of his collection getting new life in refugees' hands.
"I think if people can play the music of their background and the music of their childhood and their country, then I think that will help them emotionally -- a huge, huge amount. Huge."
Now, some of those instruments are on their way to Manus Island and Nauru.
It is the second delivery to Nauru since Sydney musician Philip Feinstein founded the organisation 10 years ago, and, he says, the first for Manus Island.
"It’s really going to improve the life-- the shocking, stressful life -- of many, many refugees stuck on Nauru and Manus."
After putting out a call for instruments for the latest deliveries, he finds his dining room now resembling what he calls "a second-hand music store," full of guitars, three keyboards, clarinets, flutes and a drum set.
"There’s a lot of percussion instruments. A lot of these people from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, et cetera, their main thing is percussion, so amongst the instruments going is a full drum kit, plus other some smaller drums and bongos."
Mr Feinstein regularly conducts music lessons at the Villawood detention centre in Sydney, and he says he wants every asylum seeker around the country to be able to experience the joy of playing music.
"It’s also wonderful when you get people from, say, Algeria and Sierra Leone and Sri Lanka all jamming at the same time and throwing in their types of rhythm, keeping in time to the music but throwing in their rhythms. From my point of view, it’s so exciting to see this and just to see this enormous talent."
While songs from the 1960s, '70s and '80s have been popular choices, Mr Feinstein says, many also like to sing songs from their original countries.
So, he says, more variety in the donations would be all the more welcome.
"It would be wonderful if anyone had a spare oud. Or any of the instruments used in these third-world countries, that would improve things as well."
The Federal Government is covering the cost of transporting the instruments, expected to arrive within two weeks. (leaving april 26).
Mời vào phần audio để nghe toàn bộ nội dung
