TAYA 2017, our week-long program for local youth in the Cayman Islands, was a huge success!
This service project was formative for us as volunteers in ways that we could not have anticipated. Clinically, getting to work with other professionals that bring so much to our profession was both refreshing and encouraging. After collaborating with other music therapists, we individually feel more equipped to bring experiences to future clients interested in hip hop, free styling, and beat making that will allow them to be successful while addressing therapeutic goals. Our own approaches to music therapy with youth considered to be at-risk were challenged and refined, allowing us to reflect on positives and complications that we encountered in the group. While this process is ever-changing and continuous in one’s practice, it was clear to us that we made progress in our individual journeys as therapists.
Throughout the week, we worked as a team to implement music therapy experiences that focused on drumming, hip hop, beat making, free styling, song writing, and performing. The experiences we designed allowed for the participants to be motivated and successful. Becoming more familiar with the process of beat making and track making proved to be a valuable skill to have while working with individuals interested in hip hop. Group processing is a challenge in many different ways and the opportunity to lead modules while providing structure for youth from a different culture was humbling and an invaluable experience. An important part of the process during our time in Cayman was being able to work with other professionals and staff. Working as a team of music therapists, we learned about each other as people and therapists and used our relationships with each other to interact with other staff and volunteers that helped the week-long program run smoothly. Staff and volunteers were also from different backgrounds, some local and some international. Entering a new space, with new relationships, was a unique opportunity to learn to how to collaborate with others while implementing meaningful and rich programming for the youth. The teens learned about what it means to work as a group, the importance of listening to other people’s stories, and expressing themselves through music.
One specific highlight in our group was of a young man identified as “F” that attended several days of the program. When we met F, he carried himself in way that communicated he was told to come to our program against his wishes. He minimally participated in our first group drumming experience, yet talked about his passion for music. As the drum circle continued, he became more comfortable and started to participate. That day, the teens were given the opportunity to improvise on the piano with being supported by a blues progression and their peers snapping and clapping along. When asked for volunteers, F was the first one to raise his hand and try a new instrument he had never tried before. After being supported and successfully improvising, the teens were given a challenge to write songs/raps about the conflict and resolutions they have encountered, based on the song form of the blues. During the experience, F took the challenge and ran with it. With the track playing softly in the background, he sat by himself muttering, chuckling in approval, typing words into his phone. He shared with others what he wrote. His story was one of hardship, living with a single mother and escaping his hardships through his music. His lyrics talked about being abandoned by his father, his mother working hard to keep food on the table, and memories of only having water and plain bread to eat. He told the group that it was the “realest” song he has ever written.
I personally was brought to a deeper level of self-awareness while in Cayman. For better or worse, I find that leaving a comfortable space and traveling to an unfamiliar place brings about understandings that one might not find in the mundane day-to-day activities we so often check off our lists. Returning to my regular schedule, it is obvious to me that music therapy is my calling and I am excited about the future as a professional and student in the field. I know that a piece of me will always be in Cayman because of the impact that the experience has made and the relationships I formed while there.
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