THE PROJECT
“IT WAS THE BEST MUSIC EXPERIENCE I HAVE HAD IN 9 YEARS!”
participant
Thanks to a £30,000 award won by our Chief Executive in 2013, we were able to design exploring:sounds, a new project to make sensory music workshops accessible to disabled children and young people.
Developed in consultation with special schools around the UK including in Cumbria, Kent, London and Manchester, we delivered six projects that brought disabled children and school staff together with our professional musicians. Using multi-sensory music activities, the children were able to express themselves non-verbally, producing new music pieces that helped them to explore their creativity, build social skills and enhance their overall self-confidence and self-esteem. Each project concluded in a concert, shining a light on the children’s achievements.
THE NEED
Disabled people remain significantly less likely to participate in cultural, leisure and sporting activities than non-disabled people. The Centre for Excellence and Outcomes in Children and Young People’s Services’ ‘Improving the Wellbeing of Disabled Children’ report identifies numerous benefits of taking part in creative activities: “playing and interacting in inclusive activities and settings helps disabled young people’s social development, particularly in terms of their understanding of peer culture; they can allow disabled young people to learn and develop skills; they can also promote disabled young people’s sense of belonging to their local community.”
According to Scope, a quarter (24%) of disabled people have experienced attitudes or behaviours where other people expected less of them because of their disability.