/ The music lessons

Music Lessons for Street Children in Sudan

The “Music Lessons for Street Children in Sudan” project advocates a non-traditional approach to education that links vocational training and capacity building with reintegration into society and the rediscovery of national identity. To date, doctors, psychologists and educators have resorted to music as a mechanism to enhance communication and interactive skills and to support change in patients of post traumatic situations.

Music therapy is based on the belief that everyone can respond to music and that through the therapeutic effect of same, children will learn to communicate on a nonverbal, symbolic level, expressing emotions through music. The music lessons will help children to handle and overcome depressions, anxiety, and traumatic experiences.

Within this context, music shall serve as a contact medium, an expression and catalyst of their emotions, which in turn, will strengthen their psychological capacity, diminish their inhibitions and fears, enhance their attention, and strengthen their awareness, creating self-confidence and reviving social skills necessary to learn and to reengage into society.

Therefore, the music lessons will have a double impact; on the one hand, they will provide children with skills they can use to earn their living – as musicians or music teachers, while on the other, the therapeutic effect of this medium will support them to cope with their traumatic experiences.

The project does not only represent a unique chance to offer children musical training and education, but will likewise contribute to improve their overall psychological wellbeing, thereby providing them with skills for their future lives.

Concept: Hubl Greiner