As part of the third and final year of my masters degree in Music Therapy I am excited to be going to Kota Kinabalu, Borneo to volunteer under the supervision of the island's first music therapist! I’ll be based mainly in the paediatric department of a women and children’s hospital, offering music therapy to patients who are in hospital for short- or long-term treatments, or end of life care. I’ll also volunteer in a stroke rehabilitation clinic, a care home, and with some community disability groups. I hope to be involved with setting up a "music-in-disability" performance project.

I will be using music to provide emotional, physical, communicative and psychological support to people. Through the work I also aim to create more awareness of music therapy in Borneo and hopefully encourage long-term music therapy interventions to be implemented. The placement will be an incredible learning experience in preparation for when I become (fingers crossed!) a qualified and HCPC-registered music therapist in the UK next year.

The placement will last 3 months, starting early December this year. It is entirely voluntary so I’m asking for help to fund the travel and accommodation costs - if there happen to be any leftover funds I will donate them directly to the hospital. Any support you can offer to help get me to Borneo will be hugely appreciated!

For information on music therapy copy and paste the below links:

https://www.bamt.org/music-therapy/what-is-music-therapy.html

https://www.statnews.com/2016/06/27/music-therapy-children-hospitals/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNuT3x4KJsY&t=27s