Musical Connections, a community music and wellbeing project based in Birmingham, is appealing for votes in this year's National Lottery Good Causes Awards. The project, run by Quench Arts and delivered in partnership with Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust’s Community Engagement Team, beat off competition from more than 600 organisations to reach the public voting stage of the awards, which each year look for worthy projects to benefit. The winners of the seven National Lottery Awards categories will each get a £3,000 and a National Lottery Awards trophy. Musical Connections is a community music and wellbeing project based in Birmingham. It is aimed at disadvantaged, disabled, isolated and housebound adults across the Midlands, using music to create positive change in one-to-one and group sessions and has been running for 20 years. We are currently working with 113 members and over 220 people have benefitted from the programme overall. 28 volunteers also have given their time to support the project.
Nicola Briggs of Quench Arts, which manages Musical Connections, says: ““We're delighted to have reached the finals of The National Lottery Awards. Lottery funding from the Reaching Communities programme has given this longstanding project a much needed level of stability and security to enable us to focus on developing and growing the Musical Connections project to further benefit isolated and vulnerable adults with specific needs living across Birmingham and Solihull.”
Liz Viggers, co-Director of Quench Arts, adds, “It’s also helped us to build a strong evidence base to support the value of music-making for wellbeing and recovery. Through the power of music, we help people to connect with others and build their confidence and resilience whilst also having fun and, in the process, creating some great original musicWe really hope that people feel touched by the impact Musical Connections has on our members and vote for our project. Voting is very easy and it would be a fantastic reward for everyone involved in the project to receive national recognition for their hard work and achievements. Please vote for us and help us to raise the profile of Musical Connections.”
To vote, please go to http://www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk/project/musical-connections or follow the campaign on twitter: hashtag #NLAwards. Voting runs until midnight on July 20.
There are seven projects competing for votes across seven categories, reflecting the main areas of National Lottery funding: arts, sport, heritage, health, environment, education and voluntary/charity.
