Guitars for Kids

Greetings from Musical Youth Foundation HQ,

I hope you are keeping well and with the changing of the seasons have a spring in your step.

Firstly, I'd like to apologise for the short delay in issuing this report, I had hoped to bring you an update at the start of March. It's been a particularly hectic year so far as I push to bring the Musical Youth Foundation to another phase of its development. On top of this I've been moving house, or more accurately "house boat". Believe it or not I've actually just moved onto a 1928 M Series Canal Barge on the beautiful Grand Canal from where I will be working harder than ever to secure the vital support needed to keep our Guitars for Kids projects running and expanding.

Over the last few months there's been a huge amount of hard work going on behind the scenes. We've been working with a team of volunteers from Salesforce Ireland and are in the process of preparing to launch a brand new music festival which has been designed to showcase new music from emerging artists while also generating awareness and much needed funding for the Musical Youth Foundation. We’ve been working on this exciting project for a while now, we’ve finally picked a name for the festival…but more on that another time. Our aim is to create two major annual events that will cover the basic day to day costs while also allowing us an opportunity to offer our life-changing services to even more children.

We've also been working with Bank of Ireland as part of their Be Our Inspiration programme - funding secured from the bank is helping to keep one of our centres running for 12 months. We've also been running a nationwide call for instrument donations across 88 of the BOI branches around Ireland. We've had some lovely instrument donations which have been passed on to our various centres around the country where the kids can access them. Drums, guitars, keyboards and even a flute are among the many instruments donated by the public so far.

In the class room...

Lessons are on-going across all our Guitars for Kids programmes in Cork, Dublin, Galway, Kilkenny, Mayo and Offaly. We've increased the number of teaching hours in some of our centres due to some additional funding secured at the end of last year - not a huge amount but enough to double some teaching hours and give the kids additional lessons and practise sessions.

Feedback from our teachers remains very positive, below just one of the regular little updates I receive from our teachers around Ireland.

"The more advanced group are making good steady progress and starting to become proficient at chords and songs which has made them quite pleased with themselves. The newer group are coming along quite well, too.  Attendance has been high and consistent also, alongside the help from the centre has been making things go well overall!" - Kevin O'Byrne, Guitar Teacher

Students in our Offaly based Guitars for Kids programme had reason to celebrate recently as their much loved teacher, Katie Cassidy, won the Le Crunch Apple of My Eye Song Contest - the final of which was held in popular Dublin music venue Whelan's of Wexford Street last week. On hearing the news of their teacher’s success her students surprised Katie with a little celebration party at the next music lesson. She wasn't expecting anything but of course was moved by the lovely gesture. It's a sign of how wonderful a job she is doing to help these kids develop their musical abilities - I can't ever imagine throwing a party for any of my teachers back in my own schooldays, admittedly a long time ago now.

Special Congratulations from everyone at MYF to Katie - she's a valued member of our teaching team and we're really thrilled for her. Onwards and upwards!

Students from our St Andrew's project in Dublin are gearing up for a live performance at the end of April. We'll bring you news of how they get on in our next update.

Lessons and practise sessions continue weekly as normal across our other centres with 259 kids receiving weekly support, something we couldn't continue to do without your financial contributions.

Although 2016 was our strongest year to date, we can't pretend we had a good year - donations were few and far between leaving us under pressure to find the required funds needed to keep the project alive past the coming summer.

Now more than ever we need your support, with your help we can continue to make a life-changing difference to the lives of the kids we are helping. Remember, these kids would not have the opportunity to learn to play a musical instrument if not for you - that's the plain and very sad truth.

I'm never sure I'm the best person to convey the power music education has on the kids we help, I only hope you can deduct from my updates the vital role it plays in helping these young children reach their full potential.

If you can, please donate what you can afford via our Guitars for Kids project page right here on GlobalGiving.

Thank you!

As always, please don't hesitate to get in touch with any questions or queries you may have.

Best,
Chris