Mission: £35,000 from Youth Music Action Zone and Kent County Council
Funding: To give excluded young people better self-esteem and pride in themselves
Disadvantaged young people in Kent have been working with professional musicians to create music.
A group of 11- to 18-year-olds, who were attending youth offending service assisted curriculum programmes or youth inclusion programmes across Kent, took part in the project to write and record the type of music they would listen to.
The scheme was driven by the young people themselves and incorporated themes based on their experiences, their sense of "self and place" and, in some cases, reparation.
The sessions were led by professional musicians from youth music project Rhythmix and took place across 10 areas of Kent. The highlights of the work produced have been put on two CDs, which will be launched at an event on 14 July. The CDs will also be available on iTunes, with the profits going to the charity Children with Leukaemia.
Allison Young, project co-ordinator at Rhythmix, says the young people responded well to the programme. "The young people did work based around reparation, which was an interesting challenge," she says. "Some quite sentimental things came out in the lyrics and it was a challenging process for them as they were thinking about what they had done and the effect that it had on people."
One young person involved in the project said: "I've really enjoyed doing this. I've never played with other people before and it felt good. It was great to get the chance to play guitar, bass and drums and to record stuff and make up my own tunes. I want to keep it up now."
