ESC: Music Fund

Music Fund is an organisation born from an association between Oxfam Solidarité and a contemporary classis music ensemble called Ictus. Aims Our mission: to give young people living in conflict zones and/or poor regions the chance to practice music in suitable conditions. Our goals: - to strengthen the sustainability of music schools by improving their access to musical instruments - to create a network of local musical instrument repair technicians and to develop their technical abilities further - to facilitate the access to reliable musical instruments to young musicians. Our approach We collect musical instruments in Europe, we check and repair them, then we send them to our partners (music schools and socio-artistic projects). We train musical instrument repair technicians, both locally and through traineeships in Europe, and we support the creation of local repair workshops. Our philosophy: - Music as a link and as an instrument for development We understand that music education and playing alone do not prevent conflict, nor do they promote economic development. However, our experience is that well-structured music teaching can play a role in building or rebuilding a community, because the attention is focused on culture, and thus away from the misery of war and poverty. Music learning and playing offer another way, because these activities require concentration, discipline, dialogue, the ability to abide by the rules and reaching an agreement with others, all of which is possible through new encounters. - Exchange not aid We do not want to «help» our partners, but support them so that they become more autonomous, through the donations of musical instruments, tools to maintain and repair them and spare parts, without losing sight of the know-how to use them. - Importance of the intercultural dialogue Music Fund not only sends out experts to support projects, but also capitalises on the intercultural experience of its experts, who often come back with an enormous knowledge and rich experience. Another goal of ours is to forge ties between the initial instrument owners and the final players, thanks to our database that allows a donor to follow the new life of their instrument. - Social commitment in Belgium Music Fund supports Belgian organisations that offer music classes or set up musical projects with/for socially vulnerable people. We try as much as possible to remove the financial barrier that prevents these people from taking actively part in musical activities, i.e. the money to buy an instrument. Target groups Young people living in difficult areas or coming from disadvantaged backgrounds worldwide. Regular activities: - Collecting, repairing and distributing musical instruments. - Expertise centre in Marche-en-Famenne: thanks to the city of Marche-en-Famenne, since 2013 Music Fund owns two professional workshops dedicated to guitar and wind instruments, where our interns have also the possibility to be trained. All the logistics related to transport and the repair of instruments is being coordinated in Marche-en-Famenne. - Local workshops and training of repair and maintenance technicians: additionally to finding and equip a physical space to turn it into a workshop, Music Fund also offers internships in Europe according to the techniques to be learnt (string and wind instrument in Marche-en-Famenne, violin repair in Milano and so on). - The implementation of specific projects always in coherence with the principles and missions of the organisation (in Palestine, Mozambique, Congo, Morocco, Haiti and several countries in Asia). In Belgium, Music Fund also has regular activities happening in the Marche-en-Famenne workshop: the welcoming of young people from Renfort to give a hand every week, the organisation of repair training lasting from one day to two weeks for musicians or music students (from the schools of IFAPME Limal, ILSA Boom and CMB Puurs). Music Fund also offers its support by gifting instruments to several organisations in Belgium, such as the asylum seeker centres of Melreux and Jupille, or Dynamo International... Music Fund is also organising around ten concerts per year within the programme called "En avant Marche" and will, once the current coronavirus situation is over, launch a new initiative called Music Fund Repair Challenge.