Music Generation Cork City have expressed their delight at being one of the chosen beneficiaries of the inaugural RTÉ Toy Show Appeal. The generosity of the Late Late Toy Show audience surpassed all expectations, and it is incredible to think that over 630,000 children and family members across the island of Ireland, will benefit in so many ways.
The Community Foundation for Ireland, who reviewed and assessed all the grant applications, said that the standard of applications was incredibly high. We are overjoyed that our programme here in Cork has been chosen and we look forward to directing these funds into much needed performance music avenues, which we are very eager to expand into.
"The Music Generation Cork City includes a huge web of people in Cork City and in our wider network so the honour of being selected for this funding is very meaningful for us, given the special place the Toy Show has in all our hearts and the generosity of the Irish public towards the appeal." Margaret O’Sullivan, co-ordinator of Music Generation Cork City
For their winning proposal, Music Generation proposed to build on their experience gained with community-based music groups, and pledged to initiate a year-long research and development project to partner with groups that work with marginalised children.
Their research proposed to do the following:
Develop and implement action research projects in schools with children with autism/on the autism spectrum.
Develop and implement research partnership with the STAR project, Cork’s education resource workers for children and young people from the Roma and Traveller communities to address gaps in music provision and identify barriers to participation in existing music programmes.
Action research to identify and address ongoing barriers to music participation for children in Direct Provision and amongst migrant communities.
"We recognise that children and young people will all have their own unique experiences, needs, and that their creative aspirations are reflective of multiplicities of experience within and between cultures, communities, individuals, families, and social groupings. We work hard to develop programmes according to local need and context by working in partnership with community-based music groups to provide responsive and adaptive context-based music learning and participation opportunities." Margaret O’Sullivan
We are reliably told that the RTÉ Toy Show Appeal will be back this year, and it is hoped that over the years to come, it will help many more children in lots of different ways.
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