In its latest round of funding, Dosoco, a Community Interest Company set up to benefit local people through music-related projects, is supporting nine separate initiatives, ranging from instrument purchase to music therapy, benefiting diverse groups of all ages.
This is the largest number of projects Dosoco has been able to support in a single round and the team is delighted to announce the recipients.
Andrea Cockerton, Dosoco founder, says: "Music has the power to completely transform people's lives, and through this record-breaking round, we're supporting some of Cambridge's best social projects."
The most recent grants are:
- Abbey Choir - to help set up a new community choir in an area of Cambridge that does not have this facility
- Anglia Ruskin University and Saffron Hall - to initiate a joint project, Together in Sound, to provide music therapy for dementia sufferers and their families
- Arthur Rank Hospice Charity - to pilot a new singing group for patients with terminal illness, aiming to enhance their physical, emotional and spiritual condition
- Cambridge Community Arts (CCA) - to set up a band project, enabling CCA's 'graduate' musicians, typically adult learners at risk of social isolation, often due to mental health challenges, to further develop their musical skills
- Cambridgeshire Music - to provide music therapy for 20 young children with special needs, and to support their families
- Cambridge Youth Opera - to deliver a series of 'Stories in Song' workshops to primary schoolchildren
- Eversden Brass Band - to purchase a bass instrument and help with teaching a young player with Asperger's Syndrome
- Gretton School, Girton - to buy wooden alto xylophones to aid music learning at this specialist school for young people with autism
- Sing Inside, Cambridge - to fund singing workshops at local prisons, bringing together young people from this student society and prisoners, breaking down barriers and encouraging positivity for rehabilitation
The Dosoco Foundation believes that music has the power to unlock people's worlds, and it aims to do this by supporting projects that have the potential to enhance lives, particularly through music education, music access, music innovation and music therapy.
This is Dosoco's fifth round of funding, following significant success with local projects since its inception in 2013. It brings its grant total over the past four years to more than £15,000.
All grants are possible because of income donated by individuals and trusts, and generated by performances from We Are Sound (formerly The Dowsing Sound Collective), a Cambridge-based group of 120 singers and musicians. After spending its first few years putting on large-scale gigs and raising money for a number of selected charities, the group decided to set up a separate organisation to channel its efforts into music-related projects.
To learn more please visit the Dosoco Foundation website www.thedosocofoundation.org
The Dosoco Foundation
www.thedosocofoundation.org / www.twitter.com/thedosoco
Dosoco supports music-related projects that have the power to unlock people's worlds and have a positive social impact as a result. The foundation supports four areas (music therapy, music access, music education and the innovative use of sound and music for social good) by providing grants to individuals and organisations across Cambridgeshire. In the future, Dosoco hopes to be offering workshops and commissioning its own music-related activities to increase access to and participation with music-making opportunities. The Dosoco Foundation is funded by profits from We Are Sound gigs, private donations and its own fund-raising activities.
In its three years of activity, Dosoco has donated over £15K to Cambridgeshire based projects.
We Are Sound
www.we-are-sound.com / www.twitter.com/theunionofsound
We Are Sound is a genre-bending crossover musical collective of over 140 singers and instrumentalists, all drawn from Cambridge and the surrounding area.
Founded in 2010, the group performs large-scale gigs in the region's best venues, and has collaborated with bands including Basement Jaxx, Boo Hewerdine, Megson, and Dirty Freud.
In 2013, We Are Sound (then called The Dowsing Sound Collective) launched The Dosoco Foundation.