During winter PULSE in Bergen and Oslo, there was a good cooperation between the activity guide project and the PULSE project.  VinterPULSE is a holiday program for both children who are playing in school bands and the ones who are not playing in bands. The project lasts for five days in each region from 08:00 to 15:30. Since PULSE is a music and health project our aim for this project is to give children an opportunity to experience the sense of belonging in the banding environment. One of our goals is to recruit  children without banding or musical background into the banding movement. The VinterPULSE content is not only focusing on musical training, we also try to bring some other activities that can help the participants in making new friends and learning about daily life skills.

It can be a bit challenging these days for children to find activities to participate in after school hours because of the family’s financial situation or other circumstances . Norges Musikkorps Forbund ( The Norwegian Band Federation) and Oslo Idrettskrets (Oslo Sports Association) has collaborated in coming up with a project called Activity guide. The Activity guide project is currently operating in Oslo and Hordaland, but in Hordaland the project is run without the cooperation with the sports association. The goal about this project is to help children and parents to find their own choice of spare time activities, provide them with necessary information or also help them to get support or any other assistance if it is needed. We believe that every child should be able to participate in an activity that they have chosen them self. the main goal of this project is not to get them in the banding movement only, but the children must be able to find their sense of belonging and mastering in any other activity their taking part in. We also have young people who are working in the project who are following the kids during rehearsal and after to make sure that they’re well and happy.

After Activity Guide working together with PULSE and NMF Peer educators during the winter PULSE, we gave experienced that there is a good potential in achieving most of our goals. The teams has made a great effort to make sure that the children and parents get an opportunity to be part of the banding movement. We were impressed and happy to see some parents engaging with Activity guide leaders during to get information about banding activity. After VinterPULSE several children has send their application to activity guides asking to join bands. This is a good indicator for us to measure our goals which is children finding a sense of belonging and getting the feeling of achievement. The activity guides are eager to do follow ups and make sure these children experience belonging and mastering in the band.  Working together is something that all parts will benefit from and we really experienced that these last two weeks

Written by Tshepang Moyo and Chief Zwane

photos by : Mads and E Vindi