Musequality

Run 4 a Reason – Your Charity. Your Choice. Your Reason.

Run 4 a Reason is an ongoing effort to help runners raise money for ANY reason they care about. You can help your favorite charity, a friend battling an illness or any cause that is important to you by setting up a fundraising page as part of your training. There... is no minimum amount you need to raise. You set your goal amount as high or as low as you want. It’s totally up to you!

Upcoming Run for a Reason Events:

The Chicago Half Marathon & 5K
Sunday, September 13th at 8am

The Chicago Marathon
Sunday October 11th

But if you can't make either above, no worries, Run 4 a Reason can be applied to any race! So start raising & training for a race near you :)Read More

Melodi Music was founded by Nimrod Moloto in 2002 and has 35 students between the ages of seven and 20. The project’s home is in a church in the Pimville area of Soweto.

The children start by playing recorders before progressing to instruments in the woodwind family with the more advanced pupils receiving one to one tui...tion every week. The project’s teachers are professional musicians working in nearby Johannesburg, as well as visiting teachers from overseas who stay to work with the project for extended periods.

Melodi offers the children a secure, safe environment in which to work while aiming to provide much more than music education. While there are regular discussions of the many problems facing so many teenagers in Soweto, the children are encouraged to aim high in life and do so with confidence and a wonderfully positive attitude. These are young people who know they have a contribution to make. They perform regularly and in December 2007 a wind ensemble performed to enthusiastic audiences in the Netherlands and the UK - London, Manchester and Bristol.

Like many organisations of its kind, Melodi is bursting at the seams – it needs rehearsal space, teaching rooms and storage space for its instruments and music library.

We were thrilled to hear them perform, to an appreciative audience, at St George's, Hanover Square, London in December 2007; they played Mozart, Bach and some traditional African songs, conducted by Nimrod Moloto who leads this project.Read More

This thriving project was founded in 2003 by violinist Leanne Dolman who identified a need for recreational facilities and extra-mural activities for children in the historically disadvantaged communities of Hangberg Harbour Village and Imizamo Yethu in Hout Bay, near Cape Town, South Africa.

It teaches music – mainly ...string instruments, voice and drumming – to about 60 children. A life skills programme addresses issues of drug-abuse, crime, HIV/AIDS and teenage pregnancy as well as encouraging goal-setting, discipline and the development of self esteem.

Members of the senior performing project are rapidly gaining a reputation for quality performances at concerts and functions. They have also performed for other successful projects, such as the Jikeleza Dancers at the Artscape Theatre.

Attendance has grown rapidly and the project needs a larger venue, more equipment, more teachers and facilitators. All this also means, inevitably, higher administrative costs.

What the project offers:

Violin lessons: five times a week
Cello lessons: four times a week
Drumming lessons: weekly
Life skills: weekly
Music theory: weekly
Senior and junior performing ensemble practises:
three times a week
Exposure to professional theatre: monthly
Regular income-producing performances: three times a month

During his Round the World and Bach journey David Juritz appeared with the group at a benefit concert – raising money which was used to buy instruments for the new electric violin project. The group enjoys broad support from all sectors of the community but could always do with more financial support.

In November 2008 we were able to send them a further donation as they had lost major funding.Read More

Eleven years ago a group of street kids started hanging around the studio of a German trumpet teacher. After several unsuccessful attempts to chase them away, the teacher, Christopher Kowlezyk, invited a few of them in for lessons.

The boys were soon hooked on music instead of drugs and, in a short time, had formed the...ir own group with dented and battered instruments supplied by Kowlezyk. Living in one room, sharing three to a mattress, they supported one another and paid their own school fees out of their earnings from the band’s occasional gigs.

They now receive some support from MTN, one of Uganda’s leading telecommunications firms, which hires them regularly. But with success has come additional responsibility. Other street children have gravitated towards the band which now provides for 70 boys and girls in two separate homes.

Musequality has provided a small, one-off grant so they can repair their battered and leaking instruments. Ever resourceful, the children plugged holes with chewing gum and this certainly worked; they continued to play with pride. The grant also enabled them to buy three new bass drums.

We are currently sponsoring a CD which will be available soon.

They now plan to develop training programmes that will generate funds for the group as well as giving the children a trade such as carpentry, welding and metal-work or poultry farming. Paying school fees for the children in their care is a constant pressure.

The band still rehearses in the same place as when they started in 1996 – under a large tree.

This remarkable group of young men are making an incredible contribution to their community. We hope we will be able to offer them substantial support in the future to help them consolidate and develop their wonderful project.Read More

Our first major project is already underway. We have committed £35,000 (US$70,000) in the first two years including start-up costs of £21,000 (US$42,000) for staff training and the renovation of a hut to create a music room. We have pledged a further £10,000 (US$20,000) a year for three years after which the project be...comes relatively inexpensive to run making it eminently sustainable.

The school, founded in 1999, has about 450 children enrolled as pupils. Aged between 12 and 19, they come from the poorest section of the community. A high proportion have lost parents and other family members to AIDS, some come from single parent families, others are refugees from the Northern Conflict, a regional war that has rumbled on for over a decade.

Although the school has some day pupils most are boarders, many of whom live at the school all year round. As well as offering a sound education the school aims to provide a stable, secure environment in which the children can develop into adults who will contribute to their community. The school receives no direct state funding but relies on donations, bartering and a small amount from fees from the few parents who can afford to pay.

Refurbishing and equipping a new music room

Setting up a project is usually the first, and biggest, hurdle so our start-up funding enabled the school to pay for the refurbishment of a dilapidated hut. Four rooms have been knocked into one and the school now has a rehearsal studio and appropriate storage space. We also provided a piano, three keyboards, 13 guitars, 70 recorders, drums, several endingidis (traditional Ugandan one-string fiddles) and books.

Tuition for up to 70 children

We are funding a choral training programme, the Tender Talents Chorus, involving up to 70 children who will receive vocal coaching, instrumental tuition on piano, recorder and guitar, and learn music theory. The Kampala Music School, a few miles away, is supplying the teaching staff.

The project aims to reinforce positive attitudes. Members of the choir work in a disciplined manner and punctuality and concentration are stressed as an important element in the group’s ethos. The medium of choral singing is particularly effective at motivating positive social behaviour. Any child not contributing in a constructive way spoils the experience not only for the group but for themselves as well – the feedback loop is immediate and obvious. On the other hand, children discover that by asserting themselves in a way appropriate to the needs of the ensemble, they can still express themselves at the same time as benefiting the group as a whole.

Putting on performances

troupeThe choir will perform a wide variety of music so as to develop an appreciation and enjoyment of other cultures.

Public performances are an important part of the project’s work. For many of the children, the experience of performing is a first step away from the margins of society towards a future where they have a contribution to make. We also believe that it represents an opportunity for their audiences to see the children as an asset rather than as a problem.Read More