Making music for and with children in Baden-Württemberg

 

The association | choice e.V.
As we regard charity work as a cooperative endeavour rather than a competition, we are happy to share our network, our expertise, our means and our resources with others. We take great care in choosing our projects, making sure they are meaningful and necessary. The association is neutral denominationally and politically. Over the last years, we have gained experience in various areas, such as forced prostitution, poverty, hospice care, therapy and education. We also know what’s behind the projects we get involved in, as we maintain a cooperative dialogue with the facilities and those in need that we work with. We live our projects, and we educate the public about them in our public relations work. We here at choice e.V. do not regard ourselves as just one charity among many, but rather want to distinguish ourselves by actually creating viable projects from theoretical ideas, and by making sure these projects are open to everyone’s individual contribution.

The idea | Tour des Lächelns (Tour of Smiles)
In the time from November 16 to November 22, 2014, we want to launch a bus tour through Baden-Württemberg, visiting about ten to fifteen facilities for children (e.g. children’s hospitals, children’s rehab clinics, children’s villages). During our visits, we want to make 90 minutes of music with and for the children and hope to make them smile.
To achieve this, we want to work directly with the facilities so that we can understand the circumstances and situations the children are finding themselves in. We also want to cooperate with regional supporters and musicians. This will allow us to give the children a very special experience in a compact time frame, an experience they are bound to remember for a long time.

The concept | Making music together with children
Depending on the facility, there is a variety of visit concepts. The active visit time will cover about 90 minutes. In addition, about 60 minutes will be devoted to preparation, and about 30 minutes to follow-up work. Preparation includes arrival at the facility, getting to know the premises, getting to know the contact in person, a short tour of the facility and the setting-up of the instruments and technical equipment.
For the active visit time, facilities can choose among three types of experience:

A. Up-close concert experience
For about an hour, we will perform a variety of children’s songs, with the children invited to clap and sing along. All that is required for this is a large-ish room with at least 10sqm floor space for the musicians and sufficient space for the attending children. We provide all technical equipment, instruments, and other resources.

B. Interactive concert experience
We prepare a portfolio of about 10 children’s songs, which the children themselves can accompany with small instruments, or sing along. In this experience, we’ll explain the songs to the children and work on developing a rhythm with them before playing the songs together. This experience requires a room that is sufficiently large for the musicians and the children.

C. Music education experience
Inspired by music education concepts, we will do one/several workshop(s) with the children. An music education trainee is currently developing a comprehensive concept, and we will gladly provide it as soon as it is available.
Follow-up work includes packing up the instruments and technical equipment as well as a short final discussion.

The tour | Dates and times
Within seven days we want to visit various facilities in Stuttgart, Ulm, Heidelberg, Heilbronn, Karlsruhe, Freiburg, the Black Forest and the Lake Constance region. Of course we’ll go beyond the cities and towns, too, and make music with children in rural areas. Most likely, we’ll visit several towns a day. The total distance to be covered is about 3,000km. The final tour schedule can only be drawn up once our discussions with the facilities have been concluded.

The team | Musician and participants
At the moment, the team consists of the two initiators and member of the charitable association choice e.V., who will be introduced in the brief profiles below. Further members will join the team.

Corinna Armbruster – Corinna is a 27-year old social worker. Over the last years she has devoted time to working with various children’s and youth charities, among them choice e.V. She has been a passionate musician since a young age, and has thus been performing on stage for more than 10 years. She is also the vocalist for the bands Old News and Acoustic Breeze.

Ralf Müller – Ralf is a 28-year old project coordinator in a media company. Having gained experience as a summer vacation counsellor and youth group leader, he volunteers in a variety of projects for children and youths. He has been a member of the executive council of choice e.V. since 2011. Besides playing the guitar he also enjoys making music on the keyboard and the cajon, usually at a camp fire or on special occasions.

Ways to support us | Donations
There are two basic ways in which you can support the project:

  • Sponsoring
  • Donation

Since these two ways are quite distinct legally, and are of different natures, they will be briefly explained below:

Sponsoring – Sponsoring refers to the granting of money or benefits in kind by companies. In doing so, these companies also pursue their own marketing and PR ends.

Donations – tax-deductible donations are voluntary non-reciprocal expenditures to support the work of a charity. They may be made in money or material benefits. Money given to a charity expecting a service in return is not a donation since in this case the supporter’s expenditure is not non-reciprocal.

For further information and enquiries, please contact

choice e.V.
c/o Martin Gremmelspacher
Mirabellenstraße 28
70329 Stuttgart

kontakt[at]choice-germany.com
www.choice-germany.com