Page 33 - SEN115 - November/December 2021

Creative arts
About the author
Mel Boda is a qualified Arts Therapist, co-founded Electric Umbrella with Artistic Director Tom, after they met on a community arts project.
electricumbrella.co.uk @electricbrolly @ElectricUmbrella
@electricumbrellacharity
“Promoting self-confidence and independence”
These online sessions are fully interactive, filled with vibrant music to lift spirits, stimulate minds and shake out the body. Right now, our autumn term is up and running. We are currently on the road to delivering our exciting new concept, Music Machine - On Tour!
This will give schools across the country an opportunity to have an Electric Umbrella visit during a show. All delivered with the help of our brand new (and very yellow) bus.
For schools who want that little bit more of Electric Umbrella magic, we can also offer bespoke workshops, and show stopping performances.
Our work doesn’t end there. We reach people with SEN all over the world via free online ‘Plug In’ sessions. These work to combat social isolation by facilitating regular, meaningful social interaction for members as well as promoting self-confidence and independence.
During the pandemic we launched additional online sessions to bring fun interactive shows, singalongs, often with inspiring guests, for over 2000 people, many of whom relied on these social and creative sessions to get them through this difficult time.
Guests have included celebrities Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Toyah Willcox, Andrew Self, Dan Gillespie Sells from The Feeling and Tony Hadley - the two latter also sang on the charity’s Christmas single The Best Christmas (In Lockdown).
We also offer smaller sessions where members can express themselves. Many of our members are able to use their social care budgets to meet the cost of these amazing experiences. This includes two Big Yellow Choirs, one for people in Hertfordshire and the other is online and open to everyone, anywhere in the world! We also have cyber sessions for young people aged 11-17 and adults. These are small group sessions where members can express themselves, make music and importantly, new friends.
We have members who have been part of our journey from the very start. We recently launched an Ambassador programme, for these experienced members who want to embrace new challenges to plan and perform live, gain valuable work experience, and participate in our schools programme.
There’s real opportunities to make music too, over the past year members collaborated on one of the most extraordinary albums ever released.
■ Live performance.
Co-written and produced from our homes, Sunflower Avenue documents a spectrum of emotions travelled by the SEN community living through a pandemic.
Overall, everything we do is all about the magic that happens when people with SEN and pro-musicians work shoulder to shoulder. It’s about achieving incredible things together. It’s about adapted instruments, making extraordinary adjustments, and it being perfectly acceptable that sometimes it takes three people to play a cello!
Music can have a magical, inspiring impact, and yes, it really does change the lives of those in our community.
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