Our boarders are lucky enough to have some very talented staff working with them.   It is even more fortunate when those members of staff want to share their talents with the students.

Every third week on a Sunday evening A. Elena, A. Mtheto and A. Juan make the boarding lounge available for a session of live music, poetry or just for students to feel comfortable sitting around listening to music as background.

These type of activities always take time to develop.  Students are sometimes shy of performing, feel they are not good enough, or just don’t have the confidence to put their foot in the door.   Over those first few Sundays, there were just two or three students who put their heads in the door to see what was happening.

For us as staff, we loved playing music, enjoyed having guest musicians, and thought that this activity was constructive and fun.  However, it appeared that our biggest competition was – the computer.   Sunday evenings seemed to be the time when the students just wanted to sit around playing on their computers.

We went away for the school holidays and came back feeling enthused, we changed the piano for the drum kit and asked the students to choose a song.

This was put into the sound equipment and then Mike and A. Juan joined in with the guitar and drums.  This was a hit with the students and these sessions are gathering strength!!

We would still like to see more students in our sessions, but growly slowly with students who are enjoying the experience is a good start.

We are working on ways to encourage more students to join us in this venture.

A. Juan