The future of music therapy for children with special needs that was on a ‘knife edge’ when its funding ran out has been saved by City financiers.
A ‘Music Treehouse’ programme that has been run by the HMDT education charity for eight years in Shoreditch is now safe from threat of closure and can run at least till 2030.
The charity has landed a grant of almost £186,000 from the City Bridge Foundation, which owns Tower Bridge, paid from commercial revenues going back 900 years.
“We’ve been on a knife-edge and at one point were in danger of not being able to continue,” the charity’s Tertia Sefton-Green said. “This would have been heart-breaking, so this funding is life-changing for us.”
Youngsters come from all over north London and east London for group music sessions and one-to-one tutoring to help their self-esteem and communication skills.
“It’s an important part of the week for them,” Tertia explained. “We see a big rise in their confidence as well as their musical skills.
“One girl who’s been with us since the start was very shy and hardly spoke — but now gets up and talks to audiences about what she’s been doing and sings on her own.”
The charity, which runs sessions on Saturdays at the Bridge Academy in Laburnum Street in Haggerston, helps children and young people aged two to 25 with a wide spectrum of severe, profound and complex needs.
The foundation that runs Tower Bridge and other historic Thames bridges gets its revenue by interest earnings from ancient investments and tariffs on City merchants going back to the 12th Century.
It awards £30 million a year in grants to organisations across London. It has made a further £200m available over the five years up to 2026 to support the charity sector.
The foundation’s chair Paul Martinelli said: “The ‘Music Treehouse’ programme means so much to all the young people who attend the sessions. Now the programme can continue to harness the power of music to bring creativity to children’s lives.”
The foundation itself has been ‘bridging’ communities by drawing on a fund that began as a toll charge on London Bridge nine centuries ago which has been invested by the City of London Corporation.
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