Corey Pierce

Speaking both figuratively and literally, Calgary and Kenya are pretty far apart. Not only do a great many kilometres of cold, unwelcoming ocean separate the Canadian Prairie city from the African country, but the two locales are also untold leagues apart culturally, socially, politically and economically. This is not news. What is, however, is that Kenya and Calgary will be moving ever so slightly closer together soon thanks to Musikiva Canada Inc., a Calgary-based non-governmental organization that will provide music therapy to at-risk youth in both areas.

“The idea came from a trip that I took to Tanzania and Rwanda about four years ago in 2005,” explains Musikiva’s executive director Shannon Robinson. “I was travelling with another NGO and got to see the impact an NGO can have on poverty and the living conditions there. When I was in Rwanda, I also ran into a couple guys who were the co-founders of yet another NGO [Kageno Worldwide Inc.], a grassroots not-for-profit that’s doing work in Kenya and Rwanda. I stayed in touch with them and one of the things they do is an art exchange program between kids in New York and kids in Kenya. They were thinking that music might be a good fit for that. We’ve been dialoguing ever since and that’s where the birth of Musikiva came from.”

Having worked for years in Calgary as a musical therapist, Robinson is well aware of the benefits the treatment can have on troubled children. Musical therapy offers participants a direct and universal form of expression, without the possibly intimidating circumstances of other forms of therapy.

“The one key element of music therapy is the non-verbal aspect to it; you don’t have to use words,” Robinson says. “They can actually be expressive and communicate and share experiences through making music. There’s lots of communication that can happen through their musical interactions; through playing instruments like drumming and even singing — even vocalizing — there’s a lot of connection that can happen between kids when they’re involved in singing sounds or even singing songs that they all loved and have grown up with.”

This universal element will be especially helpful when it comes to Musikiva’s music exchange program. Instead of simply working with children in Calgary and Kenya separately, the music exchange program involves sharing the music that is made in each group with the other. While the two groups of children may never come face-to-face, they will hear, and potentially contribute to, what each group is creating in their respective sessions.

“We’re going to start in Calgary with our three groups here,” Robinson says. “Each group will participate in music therapy on a weekly basis for a few weeks. A lot of the music that is created will be recorded and that music is going to be taken over to Kenya by other music therapists and then those same music therapists will work with the groups of kids over there on a daily basis for a couple of weeks doing a similar program. Their music will be recorded as well, but the exchange component is that the music that was created in Canada will be shared with the Kenyan kids and then that music that’s created in Kenya will come back to Canada and will be shared here with the Canadian kids.”

While Robinson hopes that Musikiva can grow to include other parts of the world over time, for now she is focused on and excited about the Calgary-Kenya exchange and the possibilities of what might emerge from it.

“To be totally honest, I don’t have any expectations in terms of what [the music created is] going to sound like,” she says. “My only expectation is there is going to be this really cool creative process and an opportunity for the kids to interact with each other through the music even though they may not be actually physically seeing each other.”