Responding to a request for a new introductory training from a school in Kenya brings us back to thinking carefully about our approach to international development as it is a completely new setting and country that has a very different context to all the places we have been working to date. As always, partnership is key:  We have already started and will continue the development and delivery of our activities in collaboration with the school to ensure we tailor the introductory training to the setting, responding to the wishes of members of staff and the pupils’ needs. To do this successfully there are various considerations we act on. 

Any new context comes with its own history, culture and various nuanced societal dynamics, which is important to be aware of and to actively understand better.  This is true wherever we work, including individual care settings here in the UK, but requires particularly thoughtful attention as an outsider doing international development work. Additionally, a positive collaborative working experience between an outsider and recipients of support usually benefit from the outsider being self-reflexive of their own positionality (i.e. looking at one’s position in terms of geographical location, socioeconomic status, race, etc). This helps an outsider to understand the world around them, influence their response to power differentials and shape their interactions with other people.  We endeavour to do this as an organisation, as individuals within the charity team working directly with a setting, and we guide the delivery teams who help us implement our activities to think about this as part of our induction process.

Recognising our position as a UK based charity, located in a country that has very complex histories with some of the countries we work in and to this day is seen as an influencer in the international development field, we’re aware of power imbalances known within the sector which we seek to always address in our work. So, it is very important that our approach includes asking questions, listening and learning from those we collaborate with so we can stay clear of any perceived misconceptions and avoid imposing our way of thinking and practices.  

At every stage of developing, planning, delivering and evaluating our activities we always turn to people we collaborate with for local insights and feedback, such as identifying the languages spoken by participating staff, finding out what musical instruments would be useful that is locally available or rather sourced from the UK, learning songs known to beneficiaries, hearing the experiences of working with us, etc. The very first week of delivering a training is evidential of learning as much as possible as our delivery team dedicate their time to listen and observe the daily running of a setting to know the best way to share music skills with participating staff.  This sharing of knowledge going both ways is what makes our activities relevant to a setting, resulting in long-lasting impact.  This is very much a brief summary of how we apply some important concepts of ‘positive practice’ found in some international development discourse; and this is our intention whilst we work together with Bombolulu School of Promise in Kenya where we hope access to music sessions will allow 100 pupils to have the opportunity to share meaningful experience of music with members of staff, get to know each other better and in turn thrive from the strengthened care provided by staff.

Like the sound of our approach?  Check out our new opportunity.

If you’re a Music Therapist or someone with an interest in music and/or international development and would like to be directly involved in delivering our new introductory training in Kenya, read more about the opportunity here and apply here by Sunday 16th March!