Give, For The Joy Of Singing!

Here’s how your CSR Funding can help nurture confidence in the at-risk, slum dwelling children through a creative and joyful music-learning experience.

This cause is featured on Fund My Project as part of CSRlive.in‘s collaboration with BitGiving.com

Project by: Music Basti

Category: Eligible CSR activity as per Companies Act 2013, Schedule VII

(ii) promoting education, including special education and employment enhancing vocation skills especially among children, …

What is Music Basti?

Music Basti connects at-risk children with musicians, aiming to nurture confidence through a creative and joyful music-learning experience. Set up in 2008, the project has worked with over 1000 at-risk children directly, and over 500 musicians and artists through community led projects in the NCR, India. In 2013, Music Basti created the one-year ReSound program. ReSound is designed to enable children to write and perform their own original songs that tell the story of their communities. Music Basti is currently exploring a number of ways to expand ReSound on a much bigger scale in partnership with low-income and/or Government schools over the next 3-5 years. The activities of Music Basti are supported and funded by institutional partners and individual sponsors. Music Basti is a project of Integrated Development Education Association (IDEA). IDEA was registered in 1991 as a Society under the Indian Societies Registration Act (XXI of 1860) with Registration No. S-22383. IDEA is also registered under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act with Registration No. 231650708.

And here's what the folks at Music Basti are saying about why they need your support:

Eight years ago we had a dream. In 2008, along with a group of musicians and college volunteers, we hosted Music Basti's first fundraising concert in New Delhi. It was a small and intimate event where we shared the vision for Music Basti and showcased the first year of our project through videos and photos. Although we didn't have the resources to bring our students to the event then, it was our dream to create music learning opportunities and quality concert spaces for children, who otherwise have no access to them. Outside the main hall we had an empty guitar case with a sign on it that read, "Please give whatever you can." 

Today, eight years later, Music Basti is one month away from hosting its third annual children's concert: “ReSound: सपनोकाजहाज़/ The Ship of Dreams” with 300 children performing! (Yes, we are privileged to now be able to bring all our students to our concerts!)

ReSound is designed to enable children write and perform their own original songs that tell the stories of their communities. This year is focused on stories about their dreams and aspirations. The concert is a unique experience where the spotlight is solely on the children's performances. It showcases their hard work through the year and brings the stories of their songs to life.For almost all the students, it's their first time on a stage, first time performing in front of their friends, peers and parents, and first time writing their own song. The evening is designed to create a high quality concert atmosphere and experience for the children, their families and community members, and other guests who attend. As a visitor to the concert, we hope the venue, stage, decor, sound and lights make you wonder which band or artist is about to walk on!

Your support will be invaluable in helping us make this a very special concert for our young performers!

Here's a little bit about our ReSound Program and our students:

Music Basti’s ReSound program was set up in 2013, based on five years' experience of many different types of short-term projects and their relative impact. All the program students live in slum accommodation or residential homes that give them shelter from a life on the street. These students do not have access to quality education, arts or music training. Through a mixture of bespoke oral musical training, songwriting and performing, the ReSound curriculum builds and encourages a variety of life-skills that are vital to a well-rounded child development. Confidence, creativity and leadership, for example, enable our young musicians to engage normatively with a rapidly changing and increasingly complex world. A rise in the confidence of our students has been one of our biggest achievements.

Since 2008, Music Basti has worked with over 1000 at-risk children directly through teaching programs; over 300 musicians and artists through community led projects in and around New Delhi, India; as well as over 300 volunteers. ReSound, now completing its third year, has recruited and trained over 70 musicians as teachers.

The program has three key components:

Teacher Training: A teacher-training program for musicians.

Curriculum Development: Curriculum and pedagogical development in how music can be used to teach life-skills in the context of the Indian education system.

A Scalable Model: Creating a program model that can be scaled and rolled-out across low-income and government schools.

"There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children." 
— Nelson Mandela, Former President of South Africa.