Music Fund

MUSIC FUND - 

Music as an instrument of development

Countries: Palestine, Israel, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Belgium, France

Project initiated in: 2005

Presented by: Federal Government of Belgium 

Partners: Flemish Community of Belgium, French Community of Belgium, City of Lille, City of Antwerp, multiple private sponsors and local partners

Project budget: EUR 145 000 (amount of funding up to 2010)

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// Context

Music Fund (MF) develops partnerships with music schools in developing countries and conflict areas, specifically the Middle East (Palestine: Gaza, Ramallah, Nablus; Israel: Nazareth, Jerusalem); Mozambique (Maputo) and Congo (Kinshasa). Means of providing artistic education and promoting culture among the local population in these countries are limited. In particular, music teaching is hampered by the difficulty of acquiring a musical instrument.

Music Fund coordinates collecting campaigns of musical instruments all over Europe, inspects and repairs them, and then donates them to its partner schools.

Music Fund provides the know-how needed for the tuning, repair and maintenance of musical instruments, through workshops and internships in the ateliers of European instrument builders, and promotes the development of local capacities in this domain.

// Project objectives

The objective is to enhance the role of culture and music in particular, as means to open new horizons and opportunities for conflict and poverty stricken populations.

The aims are to:

• give support to young musicians and music schools in the targeted regions;
• build local capacities for maintaining musical instruments, through the creation of local repair workshops within its partner schools, as well as training programmes in instrument repair;
• bring together expertise from the world of development workers and NGOs with expertise from the world of the arts – music ensembles and music presenters from all over Europe – in projects for development of poor and/or conflict stricken regions.

// Action and impact

Since the creation of MF, 1 500 musical instruments have been delivered to music schools in Africa and the Middle East, which are being used in music teaching and performances.

Repair-technicians have successfully finished MF the training programmes and now work in the repair-workshops established in the partner schools in Nablus, Ramallah, Kinshasa and Maputo.

Music Fund has opened four repair-workshops in its partner schools in Ramallah and Nablus (Palestine), Kinshasa (DR Congo) and Maputo (Mozambique). These workshops give a real workspace for those technicians already trained and those who will in the near future finish their training as repair-technicians.

Music Fund has enhanced the opportunities for the young generation living in fragile states or in conflict situations to learn and play music, thus contributing to build up a society whose attention is directed towards culture, and thus away from the misery of war and poverty.

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