Music Camps
Reaching Across Continents to Help Children Make Music
Jef Neve, Belgian classical and jazz pianist and composer
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.
Child’s Play India’s Glass is Half-Full, Half-Empty
Dr. Luis Dias, Founder/Director, Child’s Play India Foundation in Goa, India
Unlike more privileged settings, we could not make the switch to online teaching; we did try it, but most of our children did not have their own phones, and there were other issues, such as out of tune instruments, strings broken, and instruments outgrown. When the lockdown eventually lifted, many of our children had moved out of area or progressed to higher mainstream education which took them away from music lessons, either geographically or in terms of available time. We have had to start over, with new groups of children for violin and cello.
But there is also good news to balance things out.
