All project team wishes a happy, successful and creative New Year!!! 
On 10th of December Tallinn I Boarding School had its annual event – Christmas Fair. It is a nice tradition just before Christmas. Children with different special needs had made a variety of smaller and bigger Christmas gifts from postcards to big doll houses. Not to mention soft pillows, candle-holders and tree decorations. From grandmother’s corner one could find home-made jams and ginger-bread cakes. An important role was also on different cafés. 5th grade for example opened a special waffle station for that event. The photo attached shows the active unit of the class “President of Afganistan“ standing in the middle. This high position was give by the girl from the 1st row. “President “ was actually the Sikh from Singapore, a friend visiting Tallinn for couple of days.
The whole day was full of joy and laughter!
Our 3rd partners’ gathering took place on the 26th to 28th November in Tallinn. Despite of rainy weather the time spent together was fruitful. Project team and Steering group discussed running matters during first 2 days. After that on Friday afternoon we proceeded to Pahkla Capmhill Village to see the life in community of mentally disabled people. This was a great opportunity to all of us to see fantastic work Katarina, the heart of camphill village, has done there during last 17 years. Camphill people gave very warm concert and Katarina introduced afterwards special music instruments they are using. This was part of our Teachers’ Exchange Seminar.
Main part of the seminar was on Saturday attended also by local Estonian teachers. We started with brief introduction of our project Music for All followed by demo lessons of our Estonian teachers. As starting with new pupil seems to be complicated to many teachers we decided to make an experiment and try with 4 kids their very first lesson. Our teachers Ene Järvik and Koidu Ilmjärv had prepared their lesson, but had not seen these children before. The kids did not know what to expect at all. The lesson turned out well.
Anna Petraskevica and Mara Birzina talked about their music school in Riga and introduced different lessons they give to children with special needs. The video of the concert was a great opportunity to see their work.
And then followed probably the most waited part. Kaarlo Uusitalo and Markku Kaikkonen from Finland paid attention to rhythmical exercises. They have 15 years experience of work with special children. Besides their practical hints valuable to every teacher we also learned as bonus some Spanish – bate, bate chocolate.
hello everybody!
The second teachers exchange seminar took place in Tallinn, hosted by our Estonian partners – Tolaram Foundation. Thanks a lot, Sirli! It was pleasure to be there and the event was organized excelent! Those were three really busy days with lot of new information and new ideas. I came home really tired, but very inspired.
The first day was more or less a “documentation” day. The main issues were the Project Progress Report, signing a DVD contract and information about a Interreg Comunication Seminar. The “hotest” was a disscusion on the Teachers Handbook. We had to find the main idea – key idea of the book. But we found it being a very difficult task, because everybody had lot of ideas and wishes, but unfortunately there’s a page limit in the book and we have to think what is the most important. Finally we came to conclusion, that the songs could be the good start. We should find different good songs and show how much possibilities for making music it can give.
Second day was as excursion day to the Pahkla Camphill Centre, Prillimäe Rapla County. It is a village of around eight houses, where commune of people with special needs live, taking care of their farm, doing different kinds of handicrafts. There are around 100 such communes all around the world and are based on Christian ideas. Catherin – The “house mother” of the commune was educated as music therapist and she had created a music ensemble here. It was surprising that musicians were playing mostly string instruments and recorders. Although these instruments were specially adapted, playing is very complicated and it’s very seldom that people with special needs learn to play them. But it had happened there and we had a chance to hear a short concert of early music, Christmas songs and some popular tunes. And for us – Latvians – it was interesting, that in Estonia they sing the some songs we do. So we could join!
From 26th to 28th November Tallinn will host our partners from Riga and Helsinki. Besides busy working hours with Steering group and Project team we are planning to show our partners the Camphill Community in Estonia. Camphill communities provide opportunities for people with special needs to live, learn and work together with others in an atmosphere of mutual respect and equality. There are similar village in about 20 countries in America and Europe.
On Thursday, 28th November music teachers or people who are engaged in work with special people and use music as one mean are welcome to attend the Teachers’ Exchange Seminar. The seminar will be held at Helen School, Ehte 7 Tallinn from 14.00 – 17.00. The seminar includes sample lesson by our music teacher Ene Järvik, presentation by Koidu Ilmjärv about one certain part of the her every day work. Besides some valuable practical hints from our partners. The exact program will be presented closer to the seminar dates. The seminar ends with round table as the continuation for our teachers’ meeting in June. In case of interest, please register at e-mail: sirli@tolaram.ee
Showcase Conference was organized in Kulturhuset (Culture house) in Stockholm 15th of September 2009 but exhibitions, presentations and arrangements were built already day before on Monday evening. Music for All project had good place in entrance hall. Annika Claesson from Stockholm helped a lot in all arrangements and Signe Raikstina from Riga was great and big help in building everything ready. Only three different Interreg programs were introduced in Showcase so in that way it was a honor for us to be one of those.
On 15 September, 09.30-16.30, Central Baltic INTERREG IV A Programme 2007-2013 will arrange its first annual Showcase Conference at Kulturhuset in Stockholm. The conference is to provide a platform to show the progress of the Programme achieved so far but also to discuss different issues in the Central Baltic region.
Culture Departament of the Riga City and Pavuls Jurjans Music School in Riga, Resonaari Special Music School in Helsinki and Tolaram Foundation in Tallin has started their co-operation at May 1, 2009 in project Music for All. The project is designed to address issues in connection with accessibility to qualitative, goal-oriented music education for people with special needs.
Project is going to last from May 2009 till April 2011 and is financed by Central Baltic Interreg IV A Programme 2007-2013. The main activities of the program are teachers exchange seminars in each partners countries, joint teachers seminar in Helsinki, production of documentary Music for All and publishing of methodology handbook for teachers Teachers Manual.
With the help of this project it is important to change attitude of politicians, educational employees and society in general towards people with special needs, who study music. Comprehension should be obtained that this special part of society has also rights to receive high quality music education.
Altogether in project there’re planed 3 exchange teacher’s seminars. And the first took place in Helsinki, August 17th – 19th, organized by Resonaari Music School. The idea of seminars is to geather local music teachers to share teaching methodes, ideas, get to know each other, meet collagues, disscuss different subjects. And the first seminar was a very succesful start of fulfiling our idea.
Detalized report from 1st exchange seminar you can read here.
