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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. |
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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.
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.
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.
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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.
,
the theme of this year’s International Day of Peace is the “Right of
Peoples to Peace”. This anniversary offers a unique opportunity to
reaffirm the United Nations commitment to the purposes and principles
upon which the Organization was founded. The Declaration on the Right
of Peoples to Peace recognizes that the promotion of peace is vital for
the full enjoyment of all human rights.
