Bath-based children’s music and wellbeing charity Voices for Life has got schools singing all around the country, with an online assembly that reached over 15,000 children in 22 different counties!
The recorded assembly celebrated children’s mental health charity Place2Be’s ‘Children’s Mental Health Week’ (9th- 15th February). Tying in with this year’s theme, ‘This is my Place’, it focussed on the power of singing to bring people together and help them find their place in the community.
During the assembly, which was led by VFL creative practitioners Kate Courage and Emily Pennant-Rea, children reflected on what it means to belong, and learned Kate’s beautiful song ‘Under the Same Sky’.
The song was inspired by Kate’s previous experience teaching a young boy who had fled war in his home country. Faced with a new language and unfamiliar surroundings, he found it hard to settle in at first. “But in singing, where we learned just one line at a time, he was fantastic,” she explains. “The other children could see that he was just like them, and they started including him in their games and conversations.
He made me want to write this song, all about how it doesn’t matter where you come from or what language you speak – everyone has a place under the same sky.”
Children’s Mental Health Week also marks five years since Voices for Life first launched, bringing hope to children through singing during the pandemic. In five years, it has reached over 15,000 children across the South West, running children’s choirs, in-school singing/ wellbeing workshops and performances in impressive venues such as Bath Abbey. Particular highlights include children recording their own album, singing for BBC Newsround and even performing in front of the Queen!
To mark the occasion, Voices for Life is inviting music-lovers to ‘Raise the Roof’ with them, raising money to give 500 local children from under-served areas the chance to take part in their projects. Find out more and support their work at: https://voicesforlife.org.uk/raise-the-roof/