Music, martial arts and modest teenagers

High school Capoeira Angola classes are helping migrant teens find their feet in their new home.

For 18 years, the Sydney based Brazilian immigrant Mestre Roxinho has been using a subtle mix of African and South American cultures to help improve the lives of new young Australians, many who've come from childhoods heavily impacted by trauma and, in some cases, torture.

He's run classes in the practice of Capoeira Angola in New South Wales, Victoria and the Northern Territory.

Currently, hundreds of students in Sydney and Newcastle are being taught the capoeira classes - an interaction of Brazilian inspired music and forms of martial arts originating in various African countries.

The results are more confident, outgoing teenagers who are gradually finding their feet in their new home.

Ajok Theipdor, a Year 10 student at Pendle Hill High School in western Sydney came to Australia after her parents fled Sudan.

"It really helps us relax and we can have like bad times but then we think about capoeira and it just makes us be ourselves," she said.

"We can be free with whoever we want."

Project founder Mestre says the students are experiencing something which helps them rebuild their lives, and it's much more than simply music and movement.

"They (come) together, they can share, they can play together so it's about unite and confidence and share, you know that's what we need in life," he said.

"For them it's how they can live in a country like Australia and keep connected with their culture."

Another student, Mohamed Jalloh is in Year 11. He said the program helped stop him being overly aggressive in sport. He's become an outstanding athlete, winning the 100m sprint, and he's confident of achieving his school Blues in football next season.

The martial arts have taught him to be unpredictable.

"Do something that they don't think you're going to do because they're going to be thinking the same way as you, so you gotta think better and smarter and faster," he said.