As the charity’s activities as well as some of our Partners’ work continue to be affected by the global pandemic in one way or another, we continue to think about ways of delivering new projects and supporting our Partners whilst doing so safely among all the uncertainty. So this year we’ve budgeted just over £6,000 to cover costs related to Covid to make sure we are putting as much scaffolding around our activities as possible should their delivery be interrupted by Covid.

For example, we have adjusted the structure of our Distance Learning to delay the face-to-face teaching of the Intensive Study Weekend until later in the course (when we hope international travel will be possible). This requires developing and translating additional teaching materials and filming demonstration musical activities. We have reviewed the teaching content of our Interactive Music-Making Early years course so some seminars could be taught online if the course delivery is interrupted by any aspect of living alongside Covid, despite deferring its start date to later in the year. Among other things, this also has involved making sure we have consent from parents to show our teaching videos on a digital platform.

And then there are specific considerations, like private Covid tests to be allowed to enter a country (when international travel is permitted), having to travel more directly (indirect flights are often cheaper, but obviously involve extra countries) and making sure our project contributors have the necessary PPE needed for some projects. And throughout all this, communicating clearly with all our project contributors and partners and rescheduling, reorganising, risk assessing etc. all takes time (and translation!) which needs funding. So our Covid mitigation costs also include an additional burden of Project Co-ordination. Our commitment to preparing for the unforeseen is so that our activities can be carried out this year safely!