AMME charity and the pilot project in the Trier region

Making music as a balm for body, spirit and soul can be applied as an instrument to develop the verbal, mental, motor and spiritual skills and personalities of people with mental disabilities. At the same time it is an easy way to feel good and have some fun.

Conclusion of the instrument merry-go-rounds
Appropriate to the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, the final event in a series of instrument merry-go-rounds took place at the Bernkastel-Kues facility of the German Red Cross’ Workshop for People with Disabilities. About 45 interested staff of the workshop had the opportunity of getting to know and try out instruments. Five teachers of the Bernkastel-Wittlich county music school explained the instruments and helped students in their choice.
This event was the final installment of a series of merry-go-rounds in workshops and schools for people with special needs in the Trier region.

AMME e.V. as midwife and development worker
AMME e.V., a charity, started out as the “action by musicians (including those whose stage is their own bathroom at home) for musicians (with disabilities) on the road” with the aim to give people with disabilities the opportunity of learning to play an instrument to develop their artistic potential. AMME e.V.’s task is finding donors and sponsors who provide the financial framework for the measures and to initiate suitable projects. Our aim is to significantly increase the number of musicians with disabilities in Germany. In order to achieve this, we initiate cooperative projects between music schools and facilities for people with disabilities, for example schools and workshops and direct the measures for information, sensitisation, and motivation of teachers (from music schools and special needs schools), carers, learners, and parents.
With this initiative, AMME e.V. also wishes to draw attention to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which specifies in section 30.2 that the signatories “shall take appropriate measures to enable persons with disabilities to have the opportunity to develop and utilize their creative, artistic and intellectual potential, not only for their own benefit, but also for the enrichment of society.” Suitable measures and implementation plans to make this come true must now be taken.

Pilot project in the Trier region
Supported by various charitable foundations and businesses, a pilot project is being run at the moment at seven special needs school and four workshops with five municipal music schools in the Trier region. The schools involved are the Porta Nigra School in Trier, the Levana School in Schweich, the Rosenberg School in Bernkastel-Kues, the Maria Grünewald School in Wittlich, the St. Laurentius Schoocl in Daun, the Hubertus Rader School in Gerolstein and the St. Martin School in Bitburg.
For the moment, these projects are limited to clients aged 21 and below due to the age limit set by Aktion Herzenssache, a supporting foundation (affecting about 600 children and teenagers in the region). However, a continuation of the project for clients older than 21 years has now been launched thanks to the support of the Nikolaus Koch Foundation in Trier. The participating workshops are the Lebenshilfe Werke Trier (with their Serrig site), the Caritas workshop Trier, the Red Cross Social Foundation in Bernkastel-Kues and the Westeifelwerke in Gerolstein (with their sites in Wißmannsdorf-Hermesdorf and Weinsheim).

Thanks to the thorough preparation work undertaken by special needs teachers and carers, about 250 interested participants were able to try out instruments and select their favourites in the instrument merry-go-rounds offered by music school teachers. The number of participants greatly exceeded expectations. More than 120 students in the special needs schools signed up for classes. AMME e.V. will facilitate individual and small group instruction by music school teachers in the facilities during teaching hours. We expect about 80 to 90 participants in our projects in the special needs workshops. According to Mr Möhlig, we will therefore reach more than 200 participants starting next year, and this right out of the gate! Special thanks go out to the donors, the teachers and head teachers of the music schools as well as the carers in the special needs schools, without whom this rapid implementation of the project would not have been possible.

In particular, AMME e.V. would like to thank Musikhaus Thomann, and in particular the Hans Thomann Foundation, for their generous support with musical instruments, which enables us to provide the rehearsal instruments to students free of charge, taking away a sometimes prohibitive financial obstacle.

Qualification of the music school teachers
To enable music school teachers to better adjust to the new group of pupils, AMME e.V ran a series of workshops to train them, sometimes in cooperation with the Rhineland-Palatinate State Music School Association. These workshops were led among others by the experts Claudia Schmidt, Robert Wagner and Otto Kondzialka. Participants gained valuable insights and advice as well as necessary educational tools for their new challenge.

Integration into existing musical ensembles
Furthermore, we hope to integrate graduates of the programmes into existing music clubs, orchestras, bands and choirs – making music together is the goal, after all. To this end, we are planning senitisation, motivation and qualification events for musical directors and board members of these institutions.

Transfer of the results
The experience gained in networking, facilitation and implementation over the course of the pilot project is to be transferred to other areas, too; transfer is possible both to other areas of Germany and to other clienteles – e.g. senior citizens, persons from families with a history of migration, persons from socially deprived families – to achieve the ultimate goal of all-embracing inclusion through music.

Günther Möhlig is the initiator and managing director of the charity AMME e.V. – Aktion Musiker für Musiker im Einsatz, father of a son with Down syndrome, business consultant and hobby musician.

Further information is available at www.amme-musik.de