For My Identity, I Sing! Al Mada

For My Identity, I Sing!
Across Palestine, spring flowers are filling the landscape with their vibrant red, yellow and purple colors, welcoming in the new season and the transformative renewal that comes with it.
On Friday, April 18, 2014, in the National Theater of Palestine, East Jerusalem, a different type of blossoming took place as boys and girls aged 14 to 17 from East Jerusalem took to the stage for an hour-long public performance of original songs. This event was the first in a series of concerts for the Al-Mada project “For My Identity, I Sing!,” an 18-month long cultural and arts education initiative, that is being completed with funding from Welfare Association. This project gives Jerusalem area youth the chance to explore their identity and issues of importance through musical and artistic expression.

Al Mada

Our Vision

Al Mada believes in the dignity and worth of every individual and the communities we serve. Our vision is a Palestine where music and the arts are at the heart of a culturally vibrant and healthy community life. We work on the basis that everyone contributes towards making social changes and that the power of art can be used to achieve truly sustainable development if individuals are enabled to contribute to the shaping of their societies.  Communication, integrity, innovation, respect and diversity are the core values, which inform every aspect of our work.

Our Mission

Specializing in music, art and music therapy, Al Mada Association for Arts based development affirms the importance of the arts in promoting individual and collective wellbeing. Bringing musical and art therapies to advance self expression, inclusion, therapy, social justice and advocacy is at the core of its inception and the focus which drives the organization to work with Palestine’s most vulnerable communities. Al Mada’s art therapists do direct interventions with a number of vulnerable groups; train teachers, community and health workers, so all programs are sustainable and work with care givers who receive no counseling themselves. Through partnerships with the Palestinian Authority institutions, international, local and civil society organizations, Al Mada is able to pool resources and extend program reach in areas including gender, education, culture, poverty reduction and mental health.

Across Palestine, spring flowers are filling the landscape with their vibrant red, yellow and purple colors, welcoming in the new season and the transformative renewal that comes with it.

On Friday, April 18, 2014, in the National Theater of Palestine, East Jerusalem, a different type of blossoming took place as boys and girls aged 14 to 17 from East Jerusalem took to the stage for an hour-long public performance of original songs. This event was the first in a series of concerts for the Al-Mada project “For My Identity, I Sing!,” an 18-month long cultural and arts education initiative, that is being completed with funding from Welfare Association. This project gives Jerusalem area youth the chance to explore their identity and issues of importance through musical and artistic expression.

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In 2012, John came to Palestine with Remember Shakti for the first solidarity concert by major international artists. In 2010, John donated his entire cash prize award from the Jazzahead Festival in Germany to support Al-Mada’s music therapy center in Ramallah, the first of its kind in Palestine.

A letter from John McLaughlin 

Dear Friends: I would like to make a short statement.

I will be making a second solidarity concert in Ramallah soon, and I’ve been asked a number of times why I do this. 

It is my personal conviction that the Palestinian people need much more international support. 

The situation has been bad for many people in Palestine for too long, and it is not getting any better, to the contrary, it keeps getting worse. 

My wife and I have been working alongside a very dedicated Arts-Based Community Development NGO in Ramallah known as Al Mada. 

There is a simple reason for our desire to support our friends in Al Mada, it is because they are helping to cure traumatized children and adults through the use of music and music therapy. 

We feel that in a world full, of conflict, this is the right cause. 

Al Mada’s work is non-political and so is our support for them. 

They work with  justice, equality and dignity in mind, and so do we. 

It is our personal responsibility to show support and encouragement to the people who every day are helping children and adults to conquer their trauma, and give them another opportunity to live more free and creative lives.

Our Approach

We seek to bring a sense of joy and relief from what is often a very stressful life in Palestine. Through our programs, we are able to help individuals to connect both with themselves and with others in their immediate community.

Community development requires a collaborative, holistic approach. We support change that comes from within communities, through their own members, resources, capacities and diversities and believe that individuals and groups can be empowered to be thriving community members through artistic creative processes. The arts provide a space and a platform where individuals can express, create and heal and are a powerful tool to advocate for concerns and rights, thus advocacy represents another important component of our work.

Our objectives

• To introduce the arts as a developmental tool with considerable potential to empower individuals.
• To strengthen the role of the arts in Palestinian society at a time when the arts are overlooked and underfunded.
• To introduce and develop a Palestinian specific approach to music and expressive art therapy.
• To establish that development should not be limited to infrastructure or economic growth and is not strictly measurable by the GDP of a country, but is more accurately reflected in terms of quality of life.
• To provide a non-threatening platform through which to advocate for causes which impact Palestinian society as a whole.
• To compliment and support the work of the public sector which delivers critical services under challenging conditions.

A hands-on approach is emphasized during training, as participants are introduced to theory and different concepts, while going through a process of practical exercises and “living the experience”. In addition, trainees have the opportunity to put into practice the acquired tools and knowledge by working in communities at the grassroots level before their training ends.

 In 2013, Al Mada developed and completed an arts-based child protection and educational project with generous support from the Qattan Foundation and in partnership with UNICEF. This innovative project resulted with the production of our first CD for children called I Love Life.

This family-friendly CD introduces pre-school and primary school children to new educational concepts in a stimulating and thought-provoking way through 8 original songs. The album’s songs were composed by the Palestinian musician and composer Odeh Turjman, the founder and artistic director of Al-Mada, and the lyrics were written by Khaled Juma’, a Palestinian poet from Gaza who has written lyrics for numerous songs for children and adults. The songs are about children’s rights and touch on the themes of equality, the right to life, protection from child labor, and safety from conflict.

The album was recorded and edited in Al-Mada’s state-of-the-art recording studio by a team of professional musicians and technicians and a group of eight Palestinian children aged 8-12.  2000 copies of the CD were printed and 1000 of them were distributed to kindergartens and schools across the occupied Palestinian Territories in partnership with the Ministry of Education, UNRWA and ANERA. Our goal is to increase the number of children who have access to this CD in Palestine and to make it available regionally and in the diaspora, as well.

The idea for I Love Life came from the shortage of local/Palestinian musical resources that are directed at children. Educators, especially, lack creative and educational supplies and have been forced to rely on outdated materials and to use educational resources from countries that have little cultural relevance to children living in Palestinian society.

Al-Mada believes that art and creativity are essential to healthy child development and committed to strengthen the role of music in the educational process for Palestinian children.

We are thrilled to have created a culturally- and linguistically- sensitive product that is specific to the Palestinian context, while also spreading awareness about universal topics, such as human rights, peace, the environment and respect for oneself and community.  Even adults highly enjoy this unique CD and we hope you will, too!
Contact Al-Mada to purchase a copy of I Love Life

Al-Mada: The power of music is universal, eliminating barriers. It reaches us, no matter who or where we are. Whether it makes us dance or sing along, or evokes tears or laughter, music always touches us in ways nothing else can.