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1.  Encourage teenagers to explore ways in which they can    have fun.

2.  Assist them to identify key moments in their lives that caused them trauma, anxiety and leaded them to end up in jail.

3.  Reduce violence between the prisoners, inside the juvenile penal center Tonacatepeque.

4.  Implement musical cultural activities that keep youth away from violent and criminal activities.

5. Strengthen the bonds within the youth through musical creations of their authorship.

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This project aims to help imprisoned youth in San Salvador, El Salvador. This rehabilitation program will use creative methods such as the creation of music and writing to rehabilitate the adolescents that come from violent backgrounds and are part of the gangs (Maras and Barrio 18). Through both arts teenagers will have the opportunity to heal their trauma and the experiences related to their microsystems and macrosystems. They will be encouraged to create songs according to certain topics such as: their most violent experience, their happiest moment, the saddest moment, etc. To do so we will give them various instruments and materials to write songs if they want to sing. We will also have therapy sessions with experts, that will help the children to recognize their possible traumas and to heal them. Also, we will count with the participation of music teachers that will give the youth the necessary bases to create their songs. At the end of the twelve-month period, the imprisoned youth will be able to choose if they want their song on a CD or not. If they do want them there it will be available to portray what this people have been going through.

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We understand rehabilitation as “a process of limited duration and with a defined objective, aimed at allowing a person with a disability to reach an optimal physical, mental and / or social functional level, thus providing them with the means to modify their own life”

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First, we would stablish contact with the authorities of the juvenile penal center and inform them about the project, once we have all permits granted, we would introduce ourselves and our program to the children. When we have gained their trust and respect, we would start encouraging them to share their experiences in the gangs and exploring their background. Once we have acknowledged these situations, we would start implementing the musical activities and by the end of the program we will measure its impact and if we did accomplish the goals

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Why should we implement the project here?

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Why should we implement the project here?

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The Salvador is a country in Central America with high rates of violence from gangs. Children and teenagers compose these gangs in their majority, and they often participate in criminal actions that led children to end up in these penal centers. Because of this, during 2019, 1839 teenagers were arrested and most of them were identified as gang members, also, children under 18 years that are in these penal centers represent 4,6% of the total of arrests.  It needs to be considered that adolescents join the criminal groups because they see it to escape their difunctional lives, which are filled with violence and poverty.

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This project gives the opportunity to prisoners to participate in a five-day intensive program where they can play as a band. It aims to support inmates who rarely can participate in creative and relaxing activities, to create their own innovative music, which is recorded and send to their families in CDs.
We have learned from this project that music can reach people in a deeper level, which can help inmates to heal and create positive learning experiences. Because of the previous, we know that using music as a therapy may help the inmates to search deeper within them and heal their pain. Also, that by playing instruments and composing songs they can improve their self-steam and the trust on themselves.

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The teenager are the main participants in the project, because they are the ones who are rehabilitating. They participate by doing different activities related to music and therapy. The purpose of this is to help them change their violent way of acting and heal the trauma inside them.

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Researchers and therapist will participate in the rehabilitation program because they will be the ones in charge of guiding the therapies teenagers are going to receive. They will create the therapies based on the needs that are identified on the imprisoned youth. This is going to be done by providing the instruments, guidance and therapies to the members of the rehabilitation program and to the participant officers.

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They will encourage reinforce good behavior outside from the rehabilitation program and lookout for adolescents who are having a tough time adjusting to the therapies.  Some of the prison officials will receive capacitation to be able to give the necessary support to the prisoners. They will give rewards to well behaved people and also guide them when feeling down or when having violent reactions.

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The imprisoned youth are the first ones to benefit from the project, because they will be able to overcome bad experiences and trauma from their past while they work on themselves to be better people and discover new ways to deal with problems. Also, they will rehabilitate from performing violent actions, which cause them to be in jail.

The second people to benefit are the families and contexts of the teenagers, because they will no longer have to receive violent treatments from the adolescents.

Third, the prison officers and the prison in general are going to benefit from the project because the prisons will become a less violent environment, so it will be easier for them to manage the teenagers.

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La prensa gráfica. (2019, 31 julio). 4,000 menores son procesados penalmente cada año en El Salvador. Noticias de El Salvador - La Prensa Gráfica | Informate con la verdad. https://www.laprensagrafica.com/elsalvador/4000-menores-son-procesados-penalmente-cada-ano-en-El-Salvador-20190729-0474.html

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. (2016, mayo). Arts-Based Programs and Arts Therapies for At-Risk, Justice-Involved, and Traumatized Youths. https://ojjdp.ojp.gov/mpg/literature-review/arts-based-programs-for-youth.pdf

https://mapcarta.com/es/W682369511

http://www.mercops.org/Vigentes/122.BP_rehabilitacion_reinsercion.pdf

Agencia Efe. (2020, 3 enero). Arrestados 1.893 adolescentes salvadoreños en 2019, la mayoría pandilleros. www.efe.com. https://www.efe.com/efe/america/sociedad/arrestados-1-893-adolescentes-salvadorenos-en-2019-la-mayoria-pandilleros/20000013-4142669

https://www.macfound.org/media/article_pdfs/willingnesstopayfinal.pdf

Irene Taylor Trust. (2019, 9 enero). Music in Prisons. The Irene Taylor Trust. https://irenetaylortrust.com/what-we-do/our-projects/music-in-prisons/

Orphan Helpers. (s. f.). EL SALVADOR | Orphan Helpers | United States. https://www.orphanhelpers.org/el-salvador

Charles, B. M., Barber, B. H., Gulland, B. A., Wallen, B. J., Smith, B. N., Newey, B. S., & Wallen, B. J. (2019, 4 marzo). Inside the El Salvador prisons where a 'lost generation' has been abandoned by mass migration to the US. The Telegraph. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people/inside-el-salvador-prisons-home-lost-generation-abandoned-mass/

Give a Beat. (s. f.). General 4 —. https://www.giveabeat.org/programs

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The Tonacatepeque juvenile penal center 

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The Tonacatepeque juvenile penal center 

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We will focus the project in this penal center because it houses nearly 200 teen boys, many of who are associated with street gangs. The penal center is located in the outsides of the capital and it does not have a rehabilitation program yet

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Give a Beat - Prison Electronic Music Program

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Give a Beat - Prison Electronic Music Program

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This project works with prisoners to deliver a 4-hour, multi-week program which focuses on the fundamentals of music production and DJing. We have learned from this project that through music inmates can communicate by expressing what they really feel without having to talk.

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The music teachers are really important for our project since they would help us guiding the children and teenagers through the process of their musical creation, teaching them the basics of any instrument they choose or techniques that could help them.

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This is very detailed! Well done! However, it is not clear immediately what the project is. Tell me in the first post what it's all about... I had to read it through to understand and it should be obvious from the start. Move the objectives to the top.

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We will measure the impact through a comparison of quantitative and qualitative data recollected while we implement the project and at the end of it. The quantitative data would include the reports of violent incidents and if they have increased or decreased since the implementation of the project. The qualitative data would be recollected through interviews and focal groups in which the youth will be able to express their perception of violence and safety inside the prison, we also aim the participants to express if the perception about themselves has changed in any way because of the project.

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Establish contact with the authorities of the penal center that we will work on, explain to them the main purpose of the project and how we would develop it, asking any legal permits that we need to start working on it.

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Once we have the permits, we won’t start the process of create music right away, since first it is necessary to gain the trust and respect of the youth that we will work with. For this, first we would introduce ourselves, explain to them what we are attempting to do and let them feel that this would be a safe space for them to share and heal any possible violent experiences. In this face we would use ice breaker activities like “Two truths and one lie” and “Find 10 things in common”.

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We would continue the ice breaker activities to keep building trust, and we would start focal groups where the youth can talk and share their experiences in the gangs, in their families and communities.

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We would continue the process of opening up and sharing the experiences these children have lived, and by the guidance of therapists that we would contact, we would start the face of recognizing what are the possible traumas they have and what coping mechanisms they have, or could, develop.

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Start approaching children to musical therapy, explaining to them what it is, its benefits in rehabilitating people, and the ways in which we would implement it.

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Start the creative process, asking the participants what their favorite rhythms and musical genres are, and organizing groups (or solos if some prefer to work alone). Each group or individual would choose a musical genre and we will provide information of the genre they choose to each one of them. This will help us to settle the bases of their future musical creations.

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By this month we would provide the youth with a specific instrument that they would choose, and with the help of our music teachers we would start the process of learning the basics of each instrument.

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The groups or individuals would start writing their songs and musical creations based on their experiences, they feelings and their dreams. Always having in mind that the purpose of these creations is to help in the rehabilitation process of children.

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We would see the first drafts for each group and the advances they have made through the past month, the idea is to hear what each group has made so far and encourage them to continue with positive statements of their creations.

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By this month the groups and individuals have finished their songs, so they will be able to choose if they want to record it and share it with everybody.

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Measure the impact of our work based on quantitative data that reflects if the number of violent incidents has decreased or not since the beginning of the project. On the other hand, we would make interviews and focal groups so we can hear the impact that this has had in the perspective of children inside the prison about safety, violence and about themselves.

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Present the outcomes and conclusions that we found through the quantitative and qualitative data recollected, give closure to the project and make one last final “goodbye activity” where we can all share what we have learn and what we would like for the future.

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The low feeling of self-esteem that causes children to participate in violent activities promoted by the gangs they join. Usually, children join these gangs because they feel that they are not enough to success by studying and working, so they chose to join some criminal groups where they feel that they are appreciated and enough. If we solve this problem from the root children won’t feel the need to rejoin these groups and inside the prison they should stop relating to violence. Therefore, when their sentence finishes, they will be able to finish their studies and continue changing their life.

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The number of incident reports would be analyzed with a linear regression method, in which we would stablish two variables. The independent variable would be the implementation of the project “The sounds of Tonacatepeque” and the dependent variable would be the violence reports. We use this to determine the actual impact of the project.

The interviews and focal groups would be analyzed through a categorization process in which we determine some categories as “violence perception inside the prison” and “self-perception” and we determine how these categories change through the implementation of the project.

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Participation in the project and the creation of safe spaces inside the prison for sharing traumatic experiences.

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Knowing that their children are starting a process of rehabilitating that could lead to better family relations.

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For the collaborators (music teachers, therapists and investigators): 

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For the collaborators (music teachers, therapists and investigators): 

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The opportunity to work with a vulnerable community and to help them overcome difficult situations and to build a better perspective of themselves.

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The creation of safe spaces inside the prison and the opportunity to know and comprehend better the backgrounds of these children.

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To have more self confidence about themselves, to feel safer inside the prison and to recognize their possible traumas for past experiences.

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Being aware that rehabilitation projects are a possibility to help their children (and even other family members).

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For the collaborators (music teachers, therapists and investigators): 

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For the collaborators (music teachers, therapists and investigators): 

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The opportunity to actually help a vulnerable community and to provide them tools that will help them with their rehabilitation process.

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Witness a process of rehabilitation for the youth and feeling safer inside the prison.

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To have more self-efficacy about themselves and lower as much as possible the violent incidents. Expecting to stay away from violent activities in the future.

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To have a more positive image of their children and the rehabilitation process they have done. Expecting they won’t come back to violent activities in the future.

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For the collaborators (music teachers, therapists and investigators): 

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For the collaborators (music teachers, therapists and investigators): 

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To settle the bases for possible future projects that may work rehabilitating youth inside the prisons in other cities and eventually countries.

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To start recognizing these children not just as criminals or gangsters, but also as a vulnerable community that deserves help and can be rehabilitated. To feel safer inside the prison.