The nonprofit Project: Music Heals Us has developed a program called “Music for the Future," which offers incarcerated individuals an opportunity to tap into their musical sides. The goal is to give the inmates hope.
A small group of incarcerated individuals at the Santa Rosa jail in Sonoma County, California, are finding hope through music in a new program being offered at the facility.
The group was chosen based on their behavior and length of service for a special program called “Music for the Future.”
It’s funded by the nonprofit, Project: Music Heals Us. The goal is to give the inmates hope.
“Helping them to learn to, you know, learn about their feelings and their personalities and be able to learn how that connects with music,” one of the teachers involved said.
For many inmates, music composition might not be something they’ve ever thought about, but in the jail, the artform takes over.
PMHU’s musical courses and music engagements in prisons and jails run the gamut in terms of offerings. They range from single day housing unit concert tours, to semester-long, college-accredited music composition courses.
After receiving an "overwhelmingly positive audience response" during the project's first healing concert at the Radgowski Correctional Institution in May 2016, the PMHU team sought to expand the project's reach.
"The PMHU team moved to make music outreach in carceral facilities one of its primary missions, expanding its reach to local, state, and federal prisons throughout California, Connecticut and New York," the project's site says.
“Thank you so much for the warmth and enthusiasm for life and art you express through your music," a program participant at Danbury Women's Prison said, according to the project's website. "Your music brought to me a sense of normalcy I can only call ‘home’. Thank you for that gift.”
