Making Beautiful Music Together

Nonprofit Navigators facilitated a collaboration between A Child’s Song (ACS) and Shiloh House (Shiloh) that has them harmonizing beautifully! ACS piloted the Shiloh World Music Drumming (WMD) program in Summer 2020 and is the only music-based activity for youth living at Shiloh. The program was born out of Shiloh’s staff seeing the need for healthy, culturally enriching summer enrichment activities for youth during the pandemic.. Each student works with their own drum during group sessions, which are held once per week for an hour.

To demonstrate the impact of the program, per ACS instructor Kristin Orlando, “Two students ran away recently, only to return right before the start of the World Drumming class. After dealing with police, these students ran into the classroom and vented to the group about their experiences because they felt safe in this drum circle of respect and equality. One student even nervously dropped his drum during this class and cried out in fear. Kristin asked him to pick up the drum and strike it. He did. “See,” she said, “The drum still works fine—it has experienced some trauma just like you, but it still works and will continue to work and deliver great sounds…just like you.” This distressed student returned to the drum circle and completed the class calmly.