Newsletter No 36 - Rwanda!

Newsletter No. 36! (from Kasese)

September 2013

 

Hello MPM supporters!  I hope this newsletter finds you well.

It’s been an exciting month for MPM.  Music as Therapy International invited me and Vince to go to Rwanda to help them think about how to make the music therapy program they already have there more sustainable.  After a long battle with the Ugandan Immigration we got a special pass (work permits still being processed after seven months!) and were able to cross the border to drive all the way across Rwanda to Kamembe in the south west.  From here we could see across the beautiful Lake Kivu to Congo and we were a stone’s throw away from Burundi.  It was two days’ drive from south west Uganda and three days’ journey for Vince from Gulu but well worth it because we learned as much as we offered.

 

Music as Therapy International have had a relationship with two special needs centres in Cyangugu for some years now and are looking how to move ahead.  Since MPM is still running successfully after almost six years Vince and I were able to offer some words of advice as much including what not  to do as much as how to do things well!  In exchange we observed (and took part in) two ‘family days’ where parents were invited to the schools and offered advice on how to interact and communicate with their disabled children and the parents were able to ask questions and to offer their concerns.  Vince and I later discussed how this might work in Uganda (although Uganda is vastly less organized so it may take some time!) with the special needs schools we work in there.  The plan would be to offer a parents’ support day in Laroo Addra (the deaf unit) and Prison Primary (the special needs unit) to encourage the parents to keep working hard getting their children to school, to advise other parents with disabled children to get the support they need and not to hide them away and to teach them what music and art therapy are doing for their children and why it is important.

 

Meanwhile Vince continues to work alone in Gulu because we have not had any suitable musicians come forward for the job of music counselor yet.  A radio advert will go out this week so hopefully we will get some applications so someone can start in the new school year, next February.  Vince is still working in all the usual places but most of his time is taken up with the Remand Home because the staff there treat him as though he works there: he has become part of the furniture!  He is working through some very important topics with the young people, helping them to realize their mistakes that led them to be arrested and encouraging them to find ways of changing their behavior so that when they get out they will not be arrested again.  He also does sessions with themes of self-discovery, self-expression and how to live peacefully with others in the home.  He is currently writing a case-study about one of his sessions so you will be able to read that soon.

 

Sometimes he gets disheartened by his work: a girl in the special needs unit became pregnant and no one knows details of this and there are allegations of bad conduct from a head teacher at another place.  He is constantly being asked for things that he just should not have to provide like soap for the remand home that should be funded by the government.  Things like this can really drain him and that’s without even thinking about the children’s personal issues that he discovers through his therapeutic work.  But it just goes to show that his work is important and necessary in Gulu.

 

In Uganda if you have a meeting that people are expected to attend, it is normal and polite to offer lunch.  Therefore there will be a certain degree of added cost for the family days that we plan to hold.  In light of this, if you are willing to contribute a one-off donation or become a monthly supporter, please get in touch with me to find out how (either at my normal email address or at musicforpeacefulminds@yahoo.co.uk).  Thank you to everyone who has contributed, and especially to the current monthly supporters for your support.  You can visit http://musicforpeacefulminds.blogspot.com for more background information and pictures.

 

For those who pray:

·       Please pray for a suitable musician to join the MPM team as a music counselor.  The logistics of hiring someone are difficult too, since I live two days drive away from Gulu.

·       Praise God for the opportunity to work with Music as Therapy and to share ideas and problems.

MPM in Rwanda

Dear All.
I am writing a short letter now to tell you that I have been asked by Music as Therapy International http://www.musicastherapy.org/ to go to Kamembe, south west Rwanda, to help them as they try to find a way of offering music therapy services to people in that area.  They have already been working in Rwanda for some time (see their website above for more precise details) but are now thinking about changing the way they work there.
Vince is accompanying me and I am going en famille with my two boys and live-in nanny (Gareth, my wonderful husband!) since Jonah is still too young to be without mum at the moment.
I will write more when I get back about how it went.

In the meantime, I will write that unfortunately MPM has still not managed to find a musician to fulfil the requirements of the music therapist post in Gulu so Vince has been holding the fort with art and other creative ways of working with children such as dance and role-play.  There was one applicant for the job but she was not a musician.  Although Betty was also not a musician, MPM has moved on since 2008 and now Vince and I decided that the role of music counsellor should go to a talented musician.  If we go beyond a year without filling the role we may look at this specification again since a lot of the work that happens with MPM is creative work that includes music rather than solely music in itself.  But in the meantime we are still being picky!

Vince has been working in the same places as before (see previous newsletter) and after I spend three days with him in Rwanda I will chat with him and find out the details in order to write a newsletter on our return.

I look forward to filling you in on lots of exciting news when I get back!

Bethan

For people who pray please pray firstly for Vince to be able to travel across the border with not hassle as he doesn't have a passport but instead has other forms of ID and although he believes he will be able to travel there are always people who will try to make life difficult.  Also please pray urgently for a musician to join MPM in Gulu as not only is it lonely for Vince to work alone but Music for Peaceful Minds cannot be so without music!

Newsletter No. 35! (from Kasese)

February 2013

 

Hello after a long absence!  I’m sorry it has been almost a year since I wrote.  That is partly because I wanted to meet Betty and Vince, MPM’s arts therapists, in person and hear in detail what they have been doing.  It is also because I went back to the UK for four months to give birth to our second born son, Jonah.

 

In February 2013 I had our first MPM AGM with both Betty and Vince.  I will summarize, because the meeting went on through breakfast and lunch and was very long and detailed!  The sad news is that Betty is leaving us in order to move back to eastern Uganda where her three children and husband live.  She has served MPM for four years and worked with four European MPM volunteers in that time.  I now have the job of trying to replace her from my home in western Uganda, two days’ drive away from Gulu!

 

In other news, Vince and Betty have done some ground-breaking art therapy and music therapy collaborations with some wonderful results.  I will outline them below:

 

Cubu primary school

Betty and Vince were told by the teachers that a parent had complained about the therapy sessions, saying that they were doing witch-craft!  The reason is that there was a small instrument in the shape of a chicken thigh (where do they get these things!) that Betty was using in an imaginative-play game.  The child had gone and told his parent about it and the parent thought it was a fetish for witchcraft!  After clearing this matter up Betty and Vince were allowed to continue work but confined to large, open groups.  They have therefore been working with a class of 100 kids doing wide-open music sessions outside in the field combined with related art sessions in the classroom.  It is challenging, but they are meeting the challenges as they come!

 

Prison special needs school:

There have been some problems with the school management that have meant that sessions here have not been happening as often as we would like.  These have now been sorted out and sessions resume as normal.

 

Laroo Addra deaf unit:

There are some interesting ideas about how to use music and art with these deaf children at Laroo Addra school.   Vince is going to put paint down in trays on the floor with paper directly after it, also on the floor.  Then the children get in a circle and do one of their traditional dances, which usually go round in circles.  They will be accompanied by a large cow-drum that some of them are able to hear and other can watch the rhythm of it as they dance round.  They will them be able to see the music they created through the art, if not actually hear it with their ears!

 

Gulu remand home:

There has been some very interesting work going on at the remand home including a series of home-visits by Betty and Vince to try to mediate between a boy in the remand home and his father.  Through one of the music and art sessions, the boy came to Betty and started talking to her.  It transpired that he had fallen out with his father, who had come to his wits end and handed the boy over to the police for repeated thefts.  Betty was able to visit the father on the boy’s behalf, then talk again with the boy, offering the father’s point of view.  The boy’s story needs a follow-up but it seems that he was let out after his short stint in the home and now he lives again with his father, having built their bridges again!  It’s funny where music therapy ends up!

 

Another good art-music collaboration was when the children created a piece of artwork in a session themed around personality and identity then at the end they were told to take away the picture and compose a song to perform to their friends at the next session.  All the children did it and the themes that came out were at times inspiring and challenging.  One of the boys came with a song about how much he hates his mother and why he will never be able to tell her – or anyone – about his experiences in prison.  This led Vince to follow up with a session about anger and forgiveness and later, a session about faith and writing letters to God (whoever they perceived ‘god’ to be).

 

 

As usual:

Due to the additional member of staff, I need to continue to find more funding and new supporters as the cost of employing another therapist is around £100 per month.  If you are willing to contribute a one-off donation or become a monthly supporter, please get in touch with me to find out how (either at my normal email address or at musicforpeacefulminds@yahoo.co.uk).  Thank you to everyone who has contributed, and especially to the current monthly supporters for your support.  You can visit http://musicforpeacefulminds.blogspot.com for more background information and pictures.

 

For those who pray:

·       Pray for the young people in the remand home as they go through this difficult time of imprisonment, and for Vince and Betty as they works with them.

·       Pray that by the time Betty leaves in April there is someone to take her place.