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.