The project in summary
Launch of music therapy workshops for children and youths at risk of violence in the Lavender Hill community (Southeast of Cape Town).
The project in detail
Lavender Hill, an area situated on the southeast of Cape Town, is one of the most dangerous places for a child to grow-up in South Africa. Poverty, sexual and domestic violence, substance abuse and young gangs fight have a negative impact on children’s mental health living in the community. The Lavender Hill Project aims to offer psychosocial support to vulnerable children through a range of music interventions based on Music Therapy principles which include music therapy sessions.
Specifically, the Lavender Hill Project intends to:
- Help children and young people living in the community of Lavender Hill to strengthen their internal and relational resources (sense of mastery, belonging and independence);
- Offer them a secure and creative space to freely express their fears, emotional and social isolation, and impotence;
- Break the cycle of violence they are victims of;
- Offer them resilience models in order to become active agents of change in their own lives and their communities.
- 240 students, ages 9-14, of the Prince George Primary School in Lavender Hill;
- 13 parents of the children participating to the Music-Therapy Program.
Between January and November 2018, MusicWorks, also with Alta Mane support, has developed a range of music interventions intended to 240 children and youth at risk of the Prince George Primary School of the community of Lavender Hill. More specifically, 2 music-therapists, 1 clinical psychologist and 3 Community Musicians, organized: 21 music therapy sessions as a means to strengthen their internal and relations resources (sense of mastery, belonging and independence); 35 annual gumboot dance and marimba percussion workshops, intended to develop their leadership skills in order to become active agents of change in their own lives and their communities; 2 music workshops attended by 31 students and 13 parents; a marimba performance during the prestigious Schools Music Festival at the Artscape Theatre in Cape Town, on September 24, 2018, as well as a school concert (October 16-17, 2018) at the Prince George Primary School featured by 36 students.
