Healing through Music

Programa Cultural Arte em Movimento

In 2014 the Overseas Resources Foundation Limited (ORFL) started to support the Cultural Program for Art in Movement organized by Instituicao Evangelica de Novo Hamburgo (IENH) in Brazil. IENH is a private educational institution that started Arte em Movimento which promotes social inclusion by offering scholarships, exercise of citizenship and respect for the rights and dignity of human beings. To facilitate their cause, they have partnerships with many different social organizations and institutions in Novo Hamburgo.

IENH created the Cultural Program Art in Movement because Brazil has a large problem with violence towards women and children. According to the Brazilian Health Department every 5 minutes a woman is assaulted in Brazil. In Novo Hamburgo the State Department of Justice found that a child is assaulted every 4 hours.

The Cultural Program Art in Movement is for girls aged 9 to 16 and aims to help them express themselves through music classes.  It is also a space to allow girls to talk about their unhappy experiences and to reflect on life to encourage development of perception, observation, expression and reasoning through music. This aims to help them change their perspectives on life and to improve their self-esteem.

IENH offer music classes at on at their school to girls at four different shelters:

• Lar da Menina and Cecrife e Querubim are shelters for girls who suffered from violence at home or were abandoned by their families.
• AMO is an institution for children from very poor families who are victims of cancer. The institution provides these children psychological assistance and social activities.
• Escola Municipal Afonso Pena is a school for children from poor families.

ORFL helped enhance this program in many different ways. ORFL donated funds to expand the range of courses offered to; musical theory, voice laboratory, guitar, electronic keyboard and flute lessons. ORFL made it possible for IENH to hire new teachers, provide transportation, water, meals, and much more to the girls with different backgrounds. The donations ORFL made also went towards renovating a classroom for the music classes to be held in. These changes and enhancement improved the quality of life for the girls as well as gave them more tools to express themselves through music.