Gift Package: Marimba Music Lessons for Township Children

Some of the highest rates of HIV/AIDS, unemployment, theft, rape and murder in the world plague Cape Town?s black townships. The local high schools, often packed with fifty or more youth per classroom, struggle to prepare their students for a future beyond their broken windows and littered cement floors. Hard-working black teachers, educated within the racially restricted limits of Apartheid, are overwhelmed with the task of teaching a rigorous new curriculum in schools that are severely under-resourced and burdened with the full range of community problems. SAEP has joined hands with the teachers and principals of six of these high schools, running programs that intervene where the school?s capacity falls short and providing a constructive environment for youth afterschool. SAEP's Music Programme, one of our high school interventions, provides afterschool Marimba lessons to learners. This instrument was chosen because it is (1) quick to learn, (2) satisfying in its sound, (3) capable of being played in a group environment, and (4) of African origin. Over the past year, the instrument has proven to be an outstanding success with our learners. SAEP's bands have performed throughout the city, including in the Cape Town Marimba Festival in April 2009. However, we need your support in paying for their lessons. One lesson for a student marimba band costs $50.