Page 32 - SEN115 - November/December 2021

Creative arts
Interactive music
experiences for SEN learners
Hertfordshire based charity, Electric Umbrella, creates live, interactive music experiences for people with SEN. Co-founder, Mel Boda, reflects on how it all began, and the impact the charity has today.
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I’m a qualified Art Therapist so I already had experience of working with SEN learners, and found it incredibly rewarding. When I met Tom, our co-founder, on a community arts project, we both recognised there were few opportunities
for people with SEN to take to ‘the stage’ and we wanted to change that.
We started by delivering workshops across Hertfordshire, raising small amounts of money through crowdfunding initiatives and busking opportunities. Within two years we had delivered hundreds of hours of music workshops, performed to thousands of people at gigs, and held our first summer festival, Umbrellafest.
We’re now supported by a group of amazing professional musicians, a small, dedicated staff team, and lots of amazing volunteers. In doing so, we’re on a mission to challenge people to think differently about people with SEN.
When our superstars take to the stage, they help change the way the world looks at them - and others. This is so important because we believe people with SEN are all too often left behind and social care models are hardwired to be about surviving, not thriving.
“Social care models are hardwired to be about surviving, not thriving.”
Our education programmes are central to everything we do.
Every Wednesday afternoon, we deliver Music Machine, a specialist music experience for hundreds of SEN schools across the UK. We also offer mainstream schools EU Express, unique tour visits with our members, all part of our ambition to challenge children and young people to think differently about our community.
Music Machine is joined by hundreds every week and helps teachers and students everywhere to connect, express themselves through music and importantly, have loads of fun. Teachers regularly tell us just how much their students love it, and for them it’s an opportunity to switch off and join in too.
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