Sunday 27 November 2016

Goodbye MPM :(


Dear MPM supporters and friends.

 

 

I am sorry to be writing this letter to break the news that after nine years of providing music, and later art, therapy to children and young people in Gulu, MPM is now closing and will no longer be a registered Community-Based Organisation (CBO) in Uganda.

 

MPM was founded in 2008 when I went to Gulu as a newly qualified Music Therapist to offer music therapy to children in SOS Children’s Village, Gulu.  The community was emerging from a 25-year civil war in which countless tens of thousands of people were abducted, abused, maimed, killed and displaced.  The children in the orphanage had seen horrendous things and were trying to return to some semblance of normal.  MPM, which consisted at the time of myself and a Dutch colleague, Jantina Bijpost, ran four music therapy groups during the week and saw a transformation, if only for the hour we were with them, as the children lit up and lost themselves to the power that is making music together.

 

As time went on local establishments heard about music therapy and MPM was invited to work in a special needs unit at a local primary school, a secondary boarding school for children affected by the war, a rural primary school with a high number of children with behavioural problems, a juvenile remand home and a school for deaf children.  I had had no idea of how the work of MPM would evolve and had no plans as to how long I would stay in Gulu during that year of 2008.  I came across a teacher, Betty Acen, who was trained by Jantina and whom I supervised to carry on the music therapy work.  Betty worked alone for the next two years with remote supervision and my occasional visits plus some music therapy volunteers training in the UK and US.  In 2011 it became known to me that a Ugandan art therapist friend, Vincent, was free for work, I asked if he would be interested in widening the scope of MPM to include art as well as music therapy.  He joined MPM and became an asset to the growing team, extending the work in the remand home and incorporating art and discussions.

 

Around the same time Betty had to leave MPM to return to her home in eastern Uganda.  An advert was put out on the radio and Layet Florence came upon the advert and introduced herself as someone who had taken part in an MPM training course in 2008, which Jantina and I had led in a secondary boarding school for children affected by the war.  She had always remembered the training and remained interested in music therapy, and had subsequently trained as a teacher.  Florence joined Vincent after a short training and subsequent supervision and the music/art therapy continued in the various institutions around Gulu.

 

I lived in western Uganda during 2011-2014 and was able to visit Gulu annually and see the good work that MPM was doing.  The feedback from the remand home was particularly encouraging, where the young people awaiting their trials were able to work through their life-decisions so far through art and music therapy and try to find ways of putting their lives back on track to make something positive out of having been in the remand home.  The management team of the remand home was really pleased with MPM’s services, especially considering that the home is so underfunded by local government.  The same was said about art and music therapy with children in the special needs unit where the teachers were despondent and down-trodden by the apparent lack of support; the staff were pleased to have special attention for the children, despite the fact that it was a difficult place to work it was quite rewarding for MPM therapists whenever there were moments of connection with the children.

 

In 2013 MPM was asked by Music as Therapy International (MasT) to assist them with their training program in Cyangugu, Rwanda, as teachers, therapists and other service providers brought music therapy to their schools and care homes.  Vincent and I met with MasT’s UK volunteers and took part in their training seminars, offering our knowledge and experience of working as music/art therapists in East Africa.

 

However, considering I no longer live in Uganda and find it difficult to supervise and support the Ugandan MPM therapists, and considering the salaries of the MPM staff and other costs related to running MPM such as art and music resources, amongst other issues related to support that MPM therapists were getting from the places in which they worked, I came to the conclusion that nine years of running MPM in Gulu would have to come to an end.  During these nine years I have considered partnering with other international music therapy charities but none seemed to offer what was necessary for the type of work that needed to be done in Gulu.  Avenues of continuing MPM seemed closed so Vincent and Florence were given six months’ notice and I wish them every success for the future.

 

I want to thank you for your support over the years whether financial or moral, for helping to provide emotional support to countless young people in northern Uganda during a transitional time in their lives and in the life of their community.

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