Building With Music is born from the collaboration between the Mozambican Ministry of Culture and Tourism, AGAPE and MILANO MUSICA, from the experience acquired over the years in the field of culture and youth employment and from the great availability and commitment that these partners are putting in supporting the Mozambican government in responding to two issues: promoting employment and self-employment among young Mozambicans and giving impetus to the cultural sector so that it can fully express its economic and social potential.

The project aims to follow three parallel and complementary paths:

• INSTITUTIONAL STRENGTHENING, improving the skills of public institutions that deal with cultural and creative industries in Mozambique, with particular attention to the music and performing arts sector;
• PROFESSIONAL TRAINING, improving the training and level of professionalism of professionals in the music and performing arts sector;
• EMPLOYMENT AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP, promoting the creation of ecosystems capable of stimulating innovation and the creation of new businesses and the growth of existing ones in the cultural and creative industries sector and, in particular, in the music sector in the provinces of Inhambane, Zambézia and Nampula.

In the months of June, July and August, the Costruire Con La Musica project came to life, with the start of training courses that covered all three paths. In June, we started training musicians, held by internationally recognized experts in the construction and maintenance of traditional Mozambican musical instruments. In July, the first training cycle began for employees of the ministry and the Cultural Houses of the provinces involved in the project: they all met in Maputo to talk about cultural management and programming and how to improve the exchange of skills both between the cultural institutions of the country and at an international level, led by Mozambican experts and those from Italy. Finally, in August, two Italian experts in communication and fundraising went to Maputo, who taught both the employees of the Cultural Houses and other operators in the cultural sector the principles for aiming for financial sustainability.

Other activities that have been carried out in this first half of the project have concerned the review of the Fund for Artistic and Cultural Development (in April a retreat was organized involving several actors of the Fund and other public cultural institutions with the aim of analyzing the current functioning of the FUNDAC and defining the terms of reference for the restructuring, strengthening and diversification of the financial instruments and incentives available to the sector), and the restructuring of the cultural platform of the public body of reference for culture, namely the National Institute for Cultural and Creative Industries. The terms of reference are being defined for the hiring of consultants who, through a participatory process, can improve the functioning of the current INICC platform in order to make it more responsive to the needs of end users.

Finally, throughout this year, the Italian experts and the team of the National School of Music of Maputo have worked to find the best strategy to develop effective teaching courses adapted to the Mozambican context in Music Therapy, construction and maintenance of traditional Mozambican musical instruments, Maintenance of classical instruments and Sound Engineering.

The ultimate goal of the project will be to increase public, governmental and popular awareness of the value of the cultural and creative industry as a resource for the economic development of the country and the role it can play as a factor in the creation of income-generating activities and in the growth processes of the Mozambican society.