Penyo & Maria's Children's Choir

In Summer 2006, ZOV UK ran a choir project at Penyo & Maria children's home in Veliko Tǔrnovo, Bulgaria, covering a range of Bulgarian, English and Roma folk music. The choir was directed by Bozhena Tosheva, a folk singer living in Veliko Tǔrnovo, and ZOV UK's Katie Burningham. Deyan Kolev, who is the director of a project called Protecting and Popularising Roma Culture in Central Bulgaria and is also from Veliko Tǔrnovo, helped to provide backing music for the choir. The children, aged between 12 and 18, performed a concert in the home, in front of a local audience. The choir was generously funded by the Friends of Bulgaria, with a grant of £1000. In just two weeks, a group of ten children formed a choir, recorded a CD of their music and put on a concert at the home for other children and staff. It was a great success and thoroughly rewarding experience for all involved.

Project Report - Katie Burningham

As a project coordinator for ZOV UK, I was responsible for setting up and running the choir. I have volunteered several times with different children's organisations in Bulgaria, and on each occasion I have been struck by the children's capacity to have fun and enjoy life, despite the very difficult circumstances in which children in care grow up. However, one of the biggest problems that I have encountered is their lack of ability to concentrate on one activity for any length of time. As the children live such a disrupted life, it is no surprise that their concentration span is short: this needs to be nurtured in a calm and steady environment. The idea of the choir, therefore, was to entertain the children during their summer break and also help to focus their attention by working on something with a clear structure and tangible end result - a recording and performance. Happily, it turned out to provide even more than this.

Before I travelled to Veliko Tǔrnovo, I enlisted the help of a few other volunteers. At a Bulgarian singing workshop, Dessislava Koleva of the London Bulgarian Choir put me in contact with Boshena Tosheva. Boshena lives in Veliko Tǔrnovo, and is a fantastic singer of Bulgarian folk music. She inspired the children with the strength and attack of her voice, and gained their trust through her patience and understanding. Ben Dyer, Jonathan McHugh and Charlotte Healey, all volunteers with ZOV UK, also came along to create the CD and help with the rehearsals.

These began in earnest at 6:30pm each night, just after dinnertime. We practised in one of the rooms at the home as it had a piano and CD player in it. It was also a lovely big and open space, which is ideal for a singing workshop where a lot of movement and expression are encouraged. For example, in the warm up, we all took great pleasure in imitating monkeys, police sirens, stretching to the ceilings or, perhaps my favourite, flopping to the floor with not an ounce of stress or strain in sight.

Through music and song, we were able to communicate with the children on a very intimate level - and far from different languages being an obstacle to getting to know each other, by singing Bulgarian and English songs we were able to share in each other's cultures. As you might expect, the rehearsals were noisy, energetic, and by the end, quite exhausting! It took patience and endurance to bring the children together as group and encourage them to have the confidence in their own distinct abilities - a great challenge, which returned great results. By working as a team, including everyone in the activities and, crucially, having enough people on board to support the children, they produced a CD of their work and performed a concert.

Each child was given a copy of the recording as a keepsake of the project and perhaps also, by playing back the CDs, a reminder that their voices matter and deserve to be heard time and time again. We also hope to make the recording available on line in the near future, to emphasise the children's achievements and repeat the experience of their concert.

Anyone who has ever performed in public will know that it is both a nerve-racking and magical experience. The children were apprehensive as they waited in the wings, but their nerves disappeared when they realised that here was a group of people waiting to hear and applaud them - and it felt wonderful for all of us to hear this applause. The children performed three songs and then a solo from one child, and I have to say that it was the best performance I heard them give: singing together and committing all of their efforts to this moment. It was inspiring to see them stand together and show what they had achieved, and the impromptu rendition of the Bulgarian national anthem, with full audience participation, was a stirring testament to the pride that was felt by everyone in the room.

Afterwards, when the director of the orphanage had congratulated the children on their success, she told me how pleased she was to see that a mix of children with very different abilities had worked together in this way. Penyo & Maria children's home is, like most other children's institutions in Bulgaria, vastly under-staffed and finds it hard to provide the necessary support to ensure that all children are equally included in all activities. They were on this occasion and it proved that with enough help and encouragement, all of the children could succeed and create something to be proud of.

We hope to be able to run similar projects in the future, and to offer more singing tuition to children at Penyo & Maria. On behalf of the children and all at ZOV UK I would like to extend once again my warmest thanks to Julian Popov and the Friends of Bulgaria for supporting this choir.

Background

Penyo & Maria's children's home provides full-time care for approximately 100 children, aged between seven and eighteen. The orphanage operates with very limited funds, which cover the costs of the children's basic welfare only. Very few recreational activities are provided for the children, and many feel boredom and frustration as they miss out on the rewarding, stimulating and fun experiences that other children of their own age, in more privileged situations, have. This problem is exacerbated during the school holidays. Furthermore, although the children attend schools in Veliko Tǔrnovo, they remain isolated from the community due to a general lack of communication between the town and orphanage. Children from the orphanage feel stigmatised by their situation and lack confidence and social skills, especially around new people.

During the two week period in which this project is run at Penyo & Maria children's home, we aimed to:

• Increase the children's confidence by performing in front of each other and an audience.
• Encourage a sense of pride in the children for their achievements.
• Provide a challenge for the children during their summer holiday.
• Develop the children's auditory skills by participation in and listening to music.
• Develop the children's creativity and imagination.
• Build links between the orphanage and the town, by inviting local musicians to participate in the concert and encouraging local people to watch.
• Raise funds to support the education centre in Veliko Tǔrnovo that is run by ZOV UK for the children at Penyo & Maria orphanage, by selling a CD of the concert.
• Find someone from Veliko Tǔrnovo to continue the choir after the summer.

The project was monitored by:

• Conducting and recording interviews with the orphanage director before and after the project.
• Interviewing and recording the children's response to the choir before, during and after the project.
• Documenting any additional work that the children create during the project, such as posters, and including these in the final report.
• Recording the children's performance and creating a CD.
• Compiling a comprehensive report of the project which will be available on the ZOV UK website and biannual newsletter, including any problems incurred and suggestions for improvement in the future.