MUSIC PROJECTS IN THE SOUTH EAST GET BOOST WITH GRANTS OF £522,000 FROM YOUTH MUSIC CHARITY

                              

Rockinghorse Children’s Charity awarded £56,600 grant for unique hospitals project

Music-making across the South East received a boost earlier this week (Monday 18 March) when Youth Music announced grants totalling £522,000 for music projects in the region.  Organisations benefiting under the Youth Music Programme included a unique hospitals project by Rockinghorse Children’s Charity in Brighton and Hastings.

Youth Music is the leading UK charity supporting life-changing music experiences and learning for children and young people.  The £4.5m will be spent by music organisations helping young people with least opportunity access music provision. These include young people at risk of exclusion, children in care, those coping with disability and young people living in urban deprivation or rural isolation. 

Over the last year, Youth Music supported in excess of 380 projects benefiting more than 110,000 young people and children – the highest number ever.  This brings the total number helped by Youth Music to 2.5 million.  Grants have been made available across all musical genres from opera to hip-hop.

Child patients with complex health needs in The Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital (the Alex), Brighton and the Conquest Hospital in St Leonards-on-sea, Hastings are set to benefit from a unique project to improve their well-being through music-making activities. Rockinghorse Children’s Charity have been given a Youth Music grant of £56,600 to enhance the children’s well-being through lyric writing, improvisation, vocal work, soothing sounds and playing music together.  The money will also be used to help develop the highly skilled workforce needed to deliver the project.

Rockinghorse CEO Ryan Heal says: “Rockinghorse is delighted to have been awarded this grant from Youth Music to enable children from across the county to benefit from music therapy. This will be hugely beneficial for patients at the Alex and The Conquest Hospital and we look forward to working with the team at Rhythmix to make this possible.”

Youth Music Executive Director Matt Griffith says: “We are delighted to support Rockinghorse Children’s Charity to support young people in the South East.  We know that music captures the imagination of children and young people in a way that other learning often doesn’t and the benefits of their participation go way beyond developing musical skills. These benefits can include greater social and team working skills as well as enhanced self-esteem. We wish Rockinghorse Children’s Charity every success with their very worthwhile project.”