Since one year we run our own Music Program at the 22STARS center in Jinja! Within the communities we work, music has traditionally been considered essential for educating, communicating, and imparting discipline to the younger generation. Parents and elders have played the role of instructors, transferring the skills to children through riddles, storytelling, myths, traditional dance, playing local instruments and proverbs. The communities believe that these artistic skills prepare children for adult life.
Please join us on our journey to bring music skills in the lives of our children. :)
The importance of the 22STARS Music program:
As being a CBO (community based organisation) on the ground working with marginalised communities in Uganda, we took it upon ourselves to fill the gaps in knowledge provided by the public school system to enable our kids to receive a more holistic education.
For this reason, back in April 2021 we set up our music program thanks to extra donations that allowed us to buy our first musical instruments. Also the Covid-19 lockdowns were a big catalyst in this process. We were allowed to have children coming in small numbers to the center and in order to help them deal with stress, keep them motivated and learn new skills we started the Music project for them.
How our Music program started
Our project leaders on the ground Aidah and David Wafula, stressed for the importance of having a Music program at the kids center, they have done quite some research on it and came up with a very in-depth proposal regarding the instruments and trainings we should start with.
Thanks to a large donation we have received from our donors Sascha and Timo from the Online Business Podcasts, we were able to buy the following instruments: bass guitar, bow harp, solo guitar, classic guitar, acoustic guitar, drum set, keyboard, micro phones and speakers. We also enrolled three Ugandan music teachers to start teaching the first 20 children intensively. The other children still participated in our bigger dance and music classes and also had the possibility to get already familiar with some of the instruments and foremost how to read music notes.
This program also been made possible and kickstarted with the help of our volunteer Alex Valencia, who came to Uganda for three months in 2021. He helped us buying and selecting the music instruments, shared his skills as a music teacher with the children and our Ugandan music teachers.
Our needs for 2022:
The program has been running smoothly since its inception and we are seeing a great improvement in our children. By now we offer music classes every day of the week, from 2PM to 4PM. We are now seeking further support to cover our recurring costs.
These are about 400 euro a month, we pay for our three music teachers, exercise materials and the maintenance of the instruments. With extra donations we would love to add more music instruments to our program.