Music Fund - Give Music A Chance

Created in 2005 as a result of a special synergy between Oxfam Solidarité and the Belgian musical ensemble Ictus, Music Fund supports initiatives - music schools and socio-artistic projects - that work to democratise access to culture in DR Congo, Haiti, Mozambique, Palestine, Morocco and Europe. More specifically, its mission is to enable disadvantaged groups to enjoy music in the best possible conditions. In this way, Music Fund hopes to contribute to a specific form of development cooperation and encourage the cultural and artistic emancipation of populations.
 

To this end, the association collects musical instruments from all over Europe, whether from private individuals, academies and conservatoires, orchestras or other musical institutions. These instruments are checked and brought up to standard by expert volunteer luthiers and repairers, before being given a new life in Music Fund's partner projects. To ensure the sustainability of its approach, Music Fund equips repair workshops and organises training (locally and in Europe) so that the know-how needed to tune, repair and make musical instruments can be deployed and, ultimately, passed on in the regions concerned. Since 2016, the association has also been developing training programmes for sound engineers.

In addition to its international activities, Music Fund specifically supports Belgian and European socio-artistic and musical projects aimed at children, teenagers and adults living in fragile socio-economic situations (disadvantaged children, children and teenagers with mental illnesses, prisoners, migrants, etc.).

We understand that music education and music playing alone do not prevent conflict. However, our experience is that well-structured music teaching can play a role in building or rebuilding a community, because the attention is focused on culture, and thus away from the atrocities of war and poverty. And if the need for artistic expression does not prevail over the satisfying of basic needs like food, safety and health, we are convinced that having the possibility of creative opportunities, for oneself and one's children, through music gives a strong feeling of being a human being.

Through its training programmes for technical professions in the music, entertainment and audiovisual industries, Music Fund also aims to contribute to the creation of centres of activity capable of creating a new cultural dynamic in the countries in which it is active, with all that this implies in terms of social benefits (social cohesion and inclusion, intercultural dialogue, culture for all, improved cultural experience, etc.), economic benefits (increased employment opportunities, innovation, investment, emergence of a diversified, inclusive and equitable cultural and creative economy, etc.) and political benefits (support from public authorities, rebalancing the position of decentralised cities in relation to capital cities, etc.).