Project visit December 2011

Executive director Jeremy Bradshaw and trustee Jean Buck visited our projects in Uganda in the first week of December to see for themselves how the children involved in our music schemes are progressing. This is their report.

Tender Talents: magical performance

Most of Musequality’s Ugandan projects are in or near the capital, Kampala. One of our first visits was to the Tender Talents Magnet School for marginalised children, where Musequality helped to start the music programme and has funded it since 2007. It was a pleasure to finally meet the founders, Frank and Brenda Katoola. We saw the library and science room (both in need of new material and equipment), and the new water well. The students put on a special concert – particularly magical was the unaccompanied chamber choir’s performance of ‘Steal Away’. The violin group launched by a visiting teacher from Portsmouth, Jane Ingamells, also performed on instruments donated by Stentor.

M-Lisada: inspirational leadership

A visit to M-Lisada confirmed the inspirational leadership of project director Bosco Segawa, who is clearly a powerful role model for his community. We watched the brass band rehearse for the forthcoming President’s Awards ceremony, and chatted with Keith, a young man you may have seen in our film, who was supervising the writing of thank-you letters. Bosco and his accountant Richard were able to give us good news about the successes of the microloan scheme we launched a year ago, and details of an information exchange programme with the Elgon Youth Brass Band.
Bosco showed us something of the surrounding community, and invited us into his own tiny home to meet his partner and daughter. He later took us to visit the Mummy Foundation, a project that helps girls and women in the slums. The girls sang songs to us, and we agreed to help the project submit an application for ABRSM funding.

Good Shepherd Home: enormous progress

Perhaps the most humbling experience was our time at The Good Shepherd Home, a residence for disabled adults and children in the worst Kampala slum. Every kind of physical and mental disability was represented, and it seems no sufferer or abandoned baby is turned away.
The band, the choir and the dancers all performed, and we could see the band has made enormous progress since they appeared in our film. Residents unable to perform were clearly lifted by the music, and many younger children can’t wait to join the band. We have nothing but praise for this place, and the impact of the music programmes is beyond measure.

Elgon Youth Brass Band: warm welcome

The EYBB is based in Mbale, more than a hundred miles from Kampala. Our welcome was deafening. The main house is not really large enough to accommodate the 35 kids staying there, but it was clean, tidy and well run. We took Fredrick, the project founder and leader, four instruments, which were much appreciated. Naturally the band put on a concert, and they sounded great – intonation excellent, good balance. We enjoyed the dancers too. Parents and locals attended and the event ended with some speeches, including an emotional contribution from a mother who felt she had failed her daughter, but had been helped back on track by EYBB.
Fredrick is ambitious for his project, which currently involves 118 children. At present he is dependent on Musequality’s core funding, but has a creative, entrepreneurial approach to raising money. In 2011 Musequality agreed to help fund the development of income-generating skills, such as hairdressing and art and design work. This seemed to be well under way – we received a noisy welcome from the little girls in the tiny hairdressing studio, and watched several kids dressmaking with two sewing machines. Fredrick is renting a strip of land at the back of the premises and growing maize for food.

Our friends and partners

Our visit was a good opportunity to discuss management issues with the projects and prepare for the 2012 grant award process. But even better was the chance to meet up with some of our most committed friends and partners and do some valuable networking. For much of the time we were accompanied by Simon Yiga, the director of Kampala Music School. We were shown around their existing premises, which are extremely cramped, and saw the recently purchased KMS building, which will need a lot of work before the school can move in. It was good to meet the new deputy director, Natasha Chong, who formerly worked at ABRSM. The highlight was the recital given by the school’s piano pupils, where several M-Lisada children also performed.
We also had lunch with Betsy Mboizi, a highly-qualified community health specialist (and a lovely person), and are pleased that she will continue to help us with coaching and auditing our Uganda projects.