A B C D A MUSICOTERAPIA: Pontes ...

20091022

Pontes ...

Local charity Musikiva connects kids in Calgary and Kenya through song

"Speaking both figuratively and literally, Calgary and Kenya are pretty far apart. Not only do a great many kilometres of cold, unwelcoming ocean separate the Canadian Prairie city from the African country, but the two locales are also untold leagues apart culturally, socially, politically and economically. This is not news. What is, however, is that Kenya and Calgary will be moving ever so slightly closer together soon thanks to Musikiva Canada Inc., a Calgary-based non-governmental organization that will provide music therapy to at-risk youth in both areas.

“The idea came from a trip that I took to Tanzania and Rwanda about four years ago in 2005,” explains Musikiva’s executive director Shannon Robinson. “I was travelling with another NGO and got to see the impact an NGO can have on poverty and the living conditions there. When I was in Rwanda, I also ran into a couple guys who were the co-founders of yet another NGO [Kageno Worldwide Inc.], a grassroots not-for-profit that’s doing work in Kenya and Rwanda. I stayed in touch with them and one of the things they do is an art exchange program between kids in New York and kids in Kenya. They were thinking that music might be a good fit for that. We’ve been dialoguing ever since and that’s where the birth of Musikiva came from.”

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“The one key element of music therapy is the non-verbal aspect to it; you don’t have to use words,” Robinson says. “They can actually be expressive and communicate and share experiences through making music. There’s lots of communication that can happen through their musical interactions; through playing instruments like drumming and even singing — even vocalizing — there’s a lot of connection that can happen between kids when they’re involved in singing sounds or even singing songs that they all loved and have grown up with.” (...)" LER ARTIGO COMPLETO