As of January 2023, Africa Music School – operating in a suburb of Kampala and in a rural village of Busunju – is a partner organization of Music for Children. During Samira and Josien’s visit to Uganda in the summer of 2022, they came across this organization by chance. After further contact, Africa Music School and Music for Children appeared to have similar goals and so we decided to work together to find ways to strengthen each other.

Africa Music School is an organization that provides music lessons to children in their community (Masajja, Uganda). AMS was founded by Francis Kalema, as a child himself he lived on the streets of Kampala. Francis, or Franke, in his own words, was “saved by music”. He joined several music projects in Kampala and through this he got off the streets. Now Franke also wants to help other children get a better life through the use of music.

Africa Music School focuses mainly on the “less privileged” and vulnerable children in the community because they have nowhere to go. Music is their tool to rescue children and discover their talents to give them a life purpose. The ultimate goal of the organization is to become a true university where children from all over the country can enjoy music lessons. Currently, AMS is already teaching more than 270 children and young people. These are mostly children who do not have the opportunity to receive regular education. By offering free music lessons, the children still receive some form of education and it offers them a way out from the streets of the city. These are goals that Music for Children, of course, fully supports.

Since 2024, Music for Children has been supporting the project at the Salaama School for the Blind. Having a visual impairment limits your opportunities in Uganda. Blind and visually impaired children in Uganda are treated as outcasts. Children are sometimes rejected by their parents because they are blind. As a result, they form an extremely vulnerable group in Ugandan society. In addition, they cannot attend a regular school, and there is often no money for special education. The children at Salaama are an especially vulnerable group. In 2020, a fire at the school destroyed the building, and worse still, some of the children did not survive the fire. Music, therefore, serves not only to bring joy but also as a form of therapy for the children. Afterward, the children often played the nearly completely burned-out piano on their own initiative, as shown in the video below.
Music For Children provided Salaama with a new keyboard. Now there are weekly lessons on music and dance, delivered by Africa Music school and paid by Music for Children. The children are making great progress and now have many opportunities throughout Uganda to show that blindness doesn’t have to be a limitation when it comes to music and dance. Every day, they help reduce the stigma surrounding blindness, and it’s clear that music and dance empower them.