Support Dorset's young people to make music

Aim

To support more children and young people in Dorset to develop confidence and skills through making music together.

Children and young people love music. They love listening to it, sharing it, and making it - music is the soundtrack to their lives. Making music with others has been shown to have important benefits for young people's creativity, confidence, and social and personal skills as they move towards adulthood. 

We need your support to bring these transformative experiences to more young people across Dorset. B Sharp is a small and highly respected charity which runs friendly sessions for children and young people where they can make high quality music together. Young people who take part grow in self-esteem and develop communication skills. 

Founded in 2007, we have worked with over 6000 young people. We are a small organisation, run on a shoestring, but our work has a big impact! B Sharp is run by 1 full time, and 1 half time employee, with 8 Music Leaders, Assistant Musical Leaders and Learning and Support Assistants running sessions as freelancers. 

B Sharp needs your support to make more positive and creative opportunities available. We will:

• Run more active and fun music sessions across Dorset – especially for children and young people who are facing particular challenges such as mental health issues
• Provide Learning and Support Assistants to help those young people with additional needs or confidence issues
• Support increasing numbers of young people to take on leadership roles within B Sharp – and so developing skills to help in their future lives
• Provide young people in need with bursaries to take part, to ensure financial hardship is not a barrier 

We work with young people from age 0 - 25, both in our own groups and in preschools, schools, community groups and youth clubs. Our fantastic professional music leaders support the young people to create their own original songs and tracks. We run a traineeship programme which provides opportunities for young people to gain work experience in music leadership and transferable skills, that will help them access further education and help them in their future careers. Most especially love opportunities to perform at local events – we even have our own hugely popular annual busking festival in Lyme Regis. 

For more about the impact of our work with young people here.  

We all know that it can be tough for young people growing up in rural areas. Many report feeling isolated, and think a lack of confidence will stop them achieving career goals.

Music is vital to young people, and research consistently shows that taking part in music making improves young people’s life chances. However, young people’s access to music making is reducing—they have less opportunities for involvement within education, and fewer are learning instruments outside of school. 

Without B Sharp sessions and work with partners, many young people in the area would not have the opportunity to explore music with their peers at all. The sad fact is that B Sharp needs to do more now to help young people to make music than we did when the charity was founded in 2007.

Our target is £6k.

We will use this to:

* extend our reach to more children and young people

* ensure young people who attend sessions have the pastoral support they need, through having Learning and Support Assistants on hand

* extend our mentoring scheme to help young people get work experience and trainee music leadership opportunities

*Provide young people in need with bursaries to take part, to ensure financial hardship is not a barrier

The funding would be used to:

£1000 to launch a bursary scheme for young people in need

£2500 to ensure Learning and Support Assistants are able to support sessions

£2000 to run sessions with groups that support vulnerable young people

£500 to enhance our young music leader programme

If we were successful with our stretch target:

£1500 to establish longer-term opportunities with groups that support more vulnerable young people

£500 to support more vulnerable young people to access B Sharp young music leader programme

This project successfully funded on 10th December 2019