Reaching Across Continents to Help Children Make Music

 
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Reaching Across Continents to Help Children Make Music

Jef Neve, Belgian classical and jazz pianist and composer

07-08-2026

Ghetto Classics students and teachers jumping for joy about new instruments, with Jef Neve (fourth from right). Photo: Ghetto Classics.

About 15 years ago, when I was on tour in Africa, I was lucky enough to meet the late Bob Collymore, Founder/CEO of Safaricom Kenya and one of the most inspiring people on the planet. I performed at the Safaricom headquarters for all the employees; Bob was immediately enthusiastic about bringing more jazz to Nairobi, and he decided to launch the Safaricom International Jazz Festival. He organized the festival setup, and I helped him with the programming.

Most importantly, he decided that all festival profits would go to Ghetto Classics, a music education program in a poor area of Nairobi, next to the city’s largest garbage dumpsite. Bob’s support for the program was not only financial: every musician invited to play in the festival was also asked to do a masterclass—some kind of teaching and performing—at Ghetto Classics. I was honored to participate in that initiative. 

Jef Neve teaches a Ghetto Classics student. Photo: Ghetto Classics.

During my first visit to the school, I was touched the moment I walked through the gate. It was moving to see all those smiling children, motivated to make music or to dance ballet…making their own little “paradise” in the middle of a hard environment full of daily dangers. From that day on, I wanted to help, to support where I could. I started thinking. 

That same year, I was named “Honorary Citizen of the city of Geel, Belgium,” my birth city. That’s where I found a starting point for how to support Ghetto Classics. I wanted to create something for and with the city, not for my own purposes but for a greater goal. So I connected with Geel’s Academy of Music, Drama and Dance; with our cultural center; and with our City Council. And together—along with the support of the Belgian Embassy in Nairobi and the help of my manager, Pieter Kindt, and some of my own family members—we began to create Ghetto Classics Belgium. 

We started with two main activities: fundraising and collecting instruments to send to Nairobi. On a smaller scale, we also began setting up online teaching sessions between Belgian musicians and Kenyan students. This is an initiative we hope to enlarge.

When we first approached people about donating an instrument to Ghetto Classics, we were overwhelmed by the reaction. The cultural center of Geel served as stock depot for the donated instruments, and the collection got bigger and bigger…so big that after a year, we were able to fill an entire container with new or fully restored instruments (including a grand piano!) and send them to Nairobi by ship, along with spare parts, maintenance products, and boxes full of music scores. 

Pieter Kindt, second from right, working with Ghetto Classics trombone students. Photo: Ghetto Classics.

Meanwhile, we kept fundraising, not only because those shipments cost a lot but also because we wanted to keep going to Nairobi—to teach and to conduct group workshops; to prepare symphonic concerts in Nairobi and Mombasa; and to fundraise locally there, as well. 

So I came up with the idea of offering living room concerts in Belgium. To everyone who showed interest and had a (grand) piano in their living room, I offered to come and play a concert in their houses. I wasn’t performing solo: we created a small team, with my husband, Andy Dhondt, on saxophone; my manager, Pieter, on trombone; and Pieter’s wife Hanne Roos, a soprano. We did two large series of those living room concerts, a total of more than 50 concerts (and counting). 

We went to Kenya twice in 2025, once for a series of workshops and concerts in Nairobi and Mombasa, and a second time to deliver a shipment of another two tons of instruments, this time by plane. Our next visit is planned for April/May 2027, when we plan to help with the creation of “music camps,” in which studying and playing music will be combined with sports and games.

The motto of Ghetto Classics is “making music, to make a difference.” That is exactly what we see happening there, and it inspires us to support this wonderful program in every way we can. 

Celebrating the arrival of a donated tenor saxophone are (left to right) Tom Vleugels, chairman of GC Belgium; Jef Neve; GC Founder and Executive Director Elizabeth Njoroge; GC conductor and sax teacher Eric Ochieng; Pieter Kindt. Photo: Ghetto Classics.

Editors’ note: Readers interested in donating musical instruments to Ghetto Classics through Ghetto Classics Belgium can contact Pieter Kindt ([email protected]) or Tom Vleugels ([email protected]) for further information.

Academy Of Music Drama And Dance, Arts Advocacy, Arts and Culture, Arts Education, Arts Leadership, Arts Philanthropy, Belgian Embassy In Nairobi, Belgium, Bob Collymore, community impact, Community Music, Community Partnerships, Creative Youth Development, Cultural Diplomacy, Cultural Exchange, Fundraising, Geel, Ghetto Classics, Ghetto Classics Belgium, Instrument Donations, International Collaboration, Jazz, Jazz Education, Jef Neve, July/August 2026, Kenya, Living Room Concerts, Masterclasses, Music access, Music and Community, Music Camps, Music Charity, Music Education, Music For Good, Music for Social Change, Music Instrument Drive, Music Mentorship, Music Outreach, Music Performance, Music Workshops, Musician Volunteers, Nairobi, Performing Arts, Safaricom, Safaricom International Jazz Festival, Social Change, Social Impact through Music, Symphony Orchestra, Youth Empowerment

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