What Lia Rejane Mendes Barcellos shared about her experiences with homeless children in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil is very powerful and certainly profound. As I read about her experiences, I quickly found myself questioning one of her statements. Barcellos stated that it is possible for human beings to express music from the outside in. I thought, “How could that be, and what does it really mean?” Barcellos stated the following:
“Immediately we realized that despite their having voice, they expressed themselves in an almost "mechanical" way - "outside in". The challenge would be to make them express themselves "inside out", using their own voices. But, could this be expected from someone who didn't know his/her parents, or the place or date of birth? In this reality would it be possible to express themselves in an individual way? Even without knowing his/her own name?”
As I continued reading, I understood more of what Barcellos meant through her strong testimony of working with street children in Brazil and by looking back at my own similar experiences.
While reading this article, I began to reminisce about similar experiences of my own.I came from a third world country with a clear label of poverty, and though I left my home 10 years ago, my early life experiences in Indonesia remain vivid in my mind. I once knew children who walked bare foot because they could not afford shoes, I have relatives who cannot afford to attend public school, I have seen children under the age of five consume food from the side of the road, and too many times, I was begged for money by those five year olds who filled (and still do) the corner of every traffic light. Those street children worked each time the traffic lights turned red; they played their self-made instruments usually made from bottle caps while singing pop songs, lullabies, or even self composed songs. Through these songs, they begged to anyone who would give them a single coin for food. Here is a group of children that continues to be overlooked, a group of children with no ray of hope or knowledge, yet the future of the world.
If you were to encounter these children, you might immediately search for a clinical diagnosis with which to characterize them. Some of these children show such low level of behaviors that they could be mistaken for children with disabilities. My encounters with these street children have been truly intimidating. I have been in public buses with children who present behaviors which could be considered as criminal-like. Their forceful attempts to gain money from passengers on public transportation are prime examples of the criminal-like behaviors. One can relate this population to the inner city children in the United States, except with worse attitude; these Indonesian children may spit on you, and some may hit you.
Having researched and seen the behaviors of this population, I think music therapy could address many needs of these Indonesian street children. Some of those goals are: to develop positive hope, to increase emotional expression (especially for those children who have already discovered drugs at a young age), to increase knowledge which they cannot receive through public education, to increase social skills such as learning how to shake hands (these children do not know manners), to increase verbal skills (they have always been taught to fight for themselves and in turn use crude language in a loud manner), to maintain good hygiene, and to improve the musical skills they have in order to create a better method of obtaining money.
Through the lives of these children, one may conclude that not all can receive healthcare, not all have the money to receive public education, not all are qualified for what we call “food stamps,” and not all can receive justice but in many different ways, all can receive, learn, understand, and relate to and through music. For many, music is their only source of communication, on the sidewalks in Indonesia music is the only thing anyone would ever want to hear out of these children. So, the question is, why don’t we use this to our advantage?
What about the lives that have not yet been touched by music therapy? What about the groups of people who have yet to be discovered? Remember those who wander aimlessly day after day with not a single thing to do in life, can music therapy help?