Jubacana at Home | March - June 2020

Here’s a short video to share how we're still connecting with our young people during the Corona Virus pandemic.

For a group like ours, and many others around the UK, the whole concept is getting as many young people in a room as possible making music. We’re a mass music making group and play Brazilian percussion mixed with rock band instruments and other melody instruments, anything goes really. When the lockdown was announced, we were a bit floored at first and it took a few weeks of head scratching to start trying to do at least something online.

First-and-foremost we wanted to connect and check in on everyone’s well-being and Zoom seemed to be a good start. Luckily a lot of our young folks are tech savvy and have access to digital technology to connect, or they get help from their parents/carers. We have Zoom calls once a week when Jubacana would start, to keep that familiarity and routine. Those that haven’t, or don’t want to engage in this way, we keep in touch via email and phone and check in every now and again and send resources. We’ve also had consultations with other organisations in our area (like Brighter Sound, More Music, and Oldham Arts Development) to discuss online safeguarding.

Everyone learns material in the weekly workshops normally, so we had never really developed a comprehensive online resource and we figured this would be a good opportunity to do that. We also encouraged our young leaders to create online content and teaching resources, and they really rose to the challenge. A huge part of our project is equipping the next generation of music leaders with the skills to teach, and this was an interesting challenge for us and them. A high number of our young people have been using these resources at home and it’s a great thing to have for the future.

The core older team as well have learned more skills like video editing and how to adapt teaching methods during this time. As an additional engagement exercise we have been delivering beginner Portuguese lessons via Zoom. As we mainly play Brazilian inspired music and have teachers come over from Brazil, Holly (our director) decided to use her language skills to deliver these workshops online (she has a degree in linguistics). It’s been a really good way to engage on another level as we can’t deliver music sessions like we do in person online (the infamous lag).

The video goes through all the things we have been doing in Lockdown up until now. If you want to get in touch, please email info@jubacana.com and we'll be happy to share.

Music: Floating Dragons by Jubacana

Thanks to our funders and supporters Youth Music & Oldham Arts Development.