The idea for this project started a long time ago: to understand how to get in touch with Mozambican children and young people, to make them open up and help them communicate what they have inside, with spontaneity and creativity.

The Antoniano in Bologna is the one to start the pilot project. In 2017, I, the country manager of AGAPE and a psychotherapist, and Marinella Maggiori, a music therapist from Antoniano, set off for Maputo to train some kids: Soares, Omar, Esperança, Luciana and José Rafael. The ARMONIOSAMENTE project had the aim of using art and in particular music as a tool to help children and young people grow up healthy: through an approach distant from the teaching we are used to, and with the use of traditional musical instruments, the project aims to stimulate verbal and non-verbal communication processes, improve the memory and autonomy of the beneficiaries. Through the various music, theater, dance and art workshops, the children were able to give vent to their creativity and strengthen their interaction with the outside world, particularly at school and with their family.

The results of the first period of intervention were completely above expectations, especially with regard to the interest that music therapy, and art therapy more generally, have aroused in the communities, institutions and in general in the Mozambican public. The kids who were trained in music therapy and art therapy during the 18 months of the project were fascinated by the discipline, the techniques and decided to continue their growth as professionals with targeted university courses. Their dream (but also ours!) is to form the first team of Mozambican art therapists and music therapists: Esperança is studying clinical psychology, Luciana will study educational sciences and together they will further study the techniques of Theatre of the Oppressed and theatre therapy, Soares and Omar, currently self-taught traditional musicians, are studying music and continue to gain experience as music therapists, and José Rafael will study dance-movement therapy.

Since 2019, there has been a passing of the baton: AGAPE has replaced Antoniano at the helm of the project, which has taken the name of ENTENDARTE. In these two years our artists have continued to work tirelessly: the 5 initial young people have been joined by other professionals, Italian and European, who in addition to working first-hand, have trained and improved the skills of young Mozambicans. Furthermore, we have continued to support them in their studies through seminars, laboratory supervision and also through demonstration activities in public and private Mozambican centers and schools. To date, we have reached more than 400 children and young people and brought the project to more than 12 centers. But we do not want to stop: the other goal we aim for is to make the communities in which we operate fully understand the role of art in the integrated development of the person and, in particular, of the child.

2020 marked a strong slowdown in activities: since March the country has closed schools and only in October did some lessons start again, at the end of the school year (which runs from February to November in Mozambique). This made the work of our music therapists even more urgent, and they were really good. They didn’t get discouraged, after an initial moment of disorientation, they understood that they couldn’t wait to return to normal to do something. Where they couldn’t work with music, they instead helped the children to study and catch up in the subjects in which they had fallen behind, they worked in small groups, they made themselves available to the community by creating masks and distributing sanitizing gel, they raised awareness about COVID and left no one behind. All this makes us understand how they have internalized the importance of gratuitousness as a way of being: music therapy, and art therapy in general, are only the means to a greater purpose, generosity towards others and responsibility towards one’s community.

Valentina Gianni