This music and film project worked with children and young people with experience of domestic violence, creating digital stories and original music.

Background

Children will react in different ways to being brought up in a home with a violent person. Most children will be affected in some way by tension or by witnessing arguments, distressing behaviour or assaults - even if they do not always show this. They may feel that they are to blame, or they may feel angry, guilty, insecure, alone, frightened, powerless, or confused.

This can leave them socially, academically and economically disadvantaged and can often leave them excluded from their communities. The aim of this project was to re-engage with them and provide them with the confidence and abilities to progress on a personal level and contribute to the life of their community.

Women’s Aid and the NSPCC both suggest that allowing children to talk about their experiences will help them to recover; both also note that children mostly find that they can only do this in an environment where they feel safe. The creative workshop environment is a safe place for these young people to express themselves.

Music is an excellent way of engaging with disadvantaged young people. The activity within this project was participant centred, concerned with empowering the young people no matter what their skill level or ability. We aimed to improve the motivation, self esteem, confidence, sense of identity, creativity and skills of the children and young people involved.

The Project

Working in partnership with Gorwel Anglesey Domestic Abuse Service, Community Music Wales ran a series of workshops with a group of twenty young people (aged 6-15) across Anglesey. Transport was provided for the participants and support workers were also present throughout. Participants were given a choice of workshops, from filmmaking and animation, to song composition and music technology.

Participants wrote original songs as a group, trying new musical instruments and experimenting with genres. Participants then worked individually to create personal digital stories using film, Animation, photographs, music and sounds. At the end of the project each participant had an individual film as well as a group recording.

We used fully trained, experienced and CRB checked Community Music and Multi Arts Tutors. We worked with both male and female tutors so as to provide positive male role models which can be lacking in these children and young people’s lives. We ran the project bilingually so that the participants were able to express themselves in whichever language they feel most comfortable in.

Feedback

100% of the participants ranked the project as ‘Excellent’ or ‘Good’

Most of the participants would like to try this kind of activity again and comments included:

“I loved it”

“It was wicked”

“I liked everything”

85% of participants said they felt more confident about trying new activities and working with people. Many noted that they enjoyed meeting other young people in the same situation and making friends.

The Support Worker noted that some of the young people had never had the experience of playing a musical instrument or composing and that following the project several had shown an interest in learning to play an instrument and in making music.

This project was funded by the Millennium Stadium Trust.