We hope you had a great summer – all of us at BBC Children in Need certainly did. Each year, we spend a part of our summer visiting projects all over the UK, meeting the people helped by your money.
This year, we visited an inspiring project full of young people spending some time away from their homes and their normal routines, enjoying their school holidays.
The band in action at Wren Music!
For some children and young people who might not otherwise have that experience, BBC Children in Need currently funds more than 130 organisations that provide school holiday activities or residential weeks and weekends.
One of those is the Music 4 Life project run by Wren Music in Devon. Staff there use a range of different musical instruments to promote self-confidence, positive communication and behaviour amongst children from two different schools in Barnstaple and Exeter.
Community musicians David and Becki run each session which includes playing instruments, singing, forming a band, composing new music, drumming and song-writing. A grant of £30,624 over three years helps fund their salaries and the cost of some of the instruments. So children aged between five and 15 get to have a go on the drums, keyboards, squeeze boxes or concertinas, fiddles, autoharps and rare species like the mandolin.
They have weekly sessions during term time and two four-day workshops during school holidays at a local youth club. But the young people don’t have to have the ability to read music or the skills to play. They have a go at exploring and playing all the different instruments, learning and developing musical skills, learning parts and rhythms that go together like a musical jig, sometimes the music is for listening to and sometimes they even play for a dance! They’re also provided with a healthy snack; they set their own ground rules and often adapt existing songs – like Adele’s ‘Someone Like You’ to make them more relevant to the group.
Older teenagers Josh and Cody helped out the younger children who soon made a beeline for their favourite instruments, while Alfie amazed everyone with his rapping skills!
Becki said: “One child we have worked with over the three years really struggled to focus in the music sessions and consequently was quite disruptive. His co-ordination was poor and he found it very difficult to remember patterns on the instruments. Over time, he has become a real key player in the group. He now can remember chord sequences on the guitar and when he is taught a new pattern he will sit quietly and practise it until he has perfected it. His rhythm has developed and he always plays in time with the group. He still struggles sometimes with being part of a bigger group but on the whole his concentration seems to have improved immensely and he is confident. He is also quick to praise others for doing well and works really well in a pair. This year he has been taken off the Special Educational Needs register.”
Thank you for helping to support projects like Music 4 Life.
If you'd like to read about more of the projects your money helps to support, visit the Who You Help section on our website.
