Music as Therapy

Showing posts for December 2009 - Show all posts

• 21

  DEC
  2009

  Posted at 19:36

  News from Romania

  I spotted today an article on the BBC News website by Chris Rogers - a reporter with a longstanding association with Romania and, in particular, Romanian orphans.  What intererested me in what he had written was his observations of the transformation that has taken place in one former orphanage in Cighid.  The conditions in this institution shocked the world when photographs of its neglected children emerged twenty years ago, but it is a very different place now.  He attributes much of the change to the dynamic director, Oarcea Pavel, with whom we were delighted to work when we took a six-week introductory music therapy project to staff working with the children in Cighid back in 2002.  Chris Rogers observes the children now have musical instruments... these were donated by Music as Therapy!  I'm tempted to try and track him down and let him know they don't just have musical instruments, they have a fully functioning therapeutic music programme which we have received reports on for the last seven years!  Read more:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8425001.stm 

• 08

  DEC
  2009

  Posted at 15:10

  Strategy and Plan

  As mentioned in an earlier posting, our Advisory Panel meets annually to reflect on recent activities, review the ever-changing contexts of our work and to use a clinical focus to help steer our future direction. We now have a date set for our next meeting: Saturday 9th January 2010.  Our enormous thanks go to all Advisory Panel members who are travelling from far and wide to attend the day, or contributing their contributions via email.
   

• 07

  DEC
  2009

  Posted at 22:17

  Project Bethlehem

  The six-week skill-sharing project in Bethlehem has now ended and Liz Coombes and Hannah McCabe have returned safely to the UK.  We can't thank them enough for the enormous investment they've made in the children of the SOS Village and School.  The next stage of our involvement in Bethlehem is to meet with Project Partners Canon Paul Miller and Claire Tillotson to discuss how we can build on Liz and Hannah's work and respond to the needs of the Local Partners - something we know to be vital to the sustainability of any project.  This will happen in the New Year, so watch this space for news about what might happen next in Bethlehem.