You might have seen Tako’s blog sharing her experience delivering the Open House Introductory Training project last week. Jenny supervised Tako through her leadership journey and shares her experience with us below:

I still remember the moment back in 2014 when I heard I would be going to Tbilisi to deliver our 6-week skill-sharing project at Public School 198 and the Parent’s Bridge Centre. Filled with excitement and nerves, I spent the following weeks preparing for the upcoming adventure, never really thinking beyond the 27th October when the initial project would be completed. Though vaguely aware that there might be potential for further involvement beyond that point, I wouldn’t have dared to dream that I might still be part of Project Georgia eight years on.

Between 2014 and 2019, I visited Georgia five times with Music as Therapy on various endeavours. Tako and I first met on my most recent visit to Tbilisi in March 2019, when we both attended the inaugural music therapy conference held by our local partners at Public School 198. Fittingly, this meeting took place on World Music Therapy Day. Tako was a music therapy student at that point, undertaking distance learning with Nordoff Robbins in Germany. We didn’t have much time to talk but reconnected later in the year when Tako recognised me in a public Facebook post made by my employer, Nordoff Robbins UK. It has been so lovely to get to know Tako over the last few years and see all her amazing work as a musician, therapist and composer.

When the possibility of working with a new local partner at Open House centre in the city of Kutaisi came up, Tako was the perfect person to take on the role. Supporting Tako from afar via weekly Zoom calls throughout the 8 weeks of her project, I again found myself filled with excitement and nerves in my new supporting role. Would I know what to say? Would I be too much of a cultural outsider to understand what was happening? What if I somehow ruined the name of Music as Therapy in Georgia forevermore?!

From our calls, I recognised in Tako many similar experiences to my own, both from when I delivered my project and in this new role as a supporter. That initial excitement tinged with nerves, the need to sit with uncertainty, and, above all, a deep sense of growing pride in the work. As with any endeavour, the road to success begins with the ability to tolerate initial discomfort, and trust that confidence will grow – and it did, for both of us. I find myself so grateful for the opportunity to play another role in Project Georgia, and once again thanking my lucky stars for that first opportunity back in 2014. My eight years with Project Georgia have gone by in a flash; here’s to many more!