September 2011 – Pilot Program concludes in Calgary

July 2011 – Pilot Program runs in Rwanda

June 2011 – Pilot Program runs in Calgary

May 2011 – Private Musical Menu Party

April 27, 2011- 7-9pm – Wine Tasting. Location – 100 Wines. Good music, silent auction, and most importantly – wine!

April 2011 – Private Musical Menu Party

February 2011 – Private Musical Menu Party

January 2011 – Private Musical Menu Party

December 2010 – Chirstmas Card Donation Campaign. Donations were accepted for MusiKiva on someone’s behalf.

December 2010 – Private Musical Menu Christmas Party

July 29, 2010 – 12-1 pm- Shannon Robinson busks for MusiKiva – Stephen Avenue (8th Ave) and 2nd St. SW

July 22, 2010 – 12-1 pm- Shannon Robinson busks for MusiKiva – Stephen Avenue (8th Ave) and 2nd St. SW

June 18, 2010 – CBC highlights MusiKiva’s program

May 10, 2010 – AGM

December 2009 – fundraiser event at Vicious Circle

October 2009 – Partnership established with Kageno Inc.

September 25, 2009 – LAUNCH – Friends of MusiKiva gather to celebrate the launch of MusiKiva

August 2009 – Service Agreement established with JB Music Therapy Inc.

April 2009 – first Musical Menu party/fundraiser

March 2009 – MusiKiva joins efforts with Fig Tree Foundation

February 23, 2009 – Shannon Robinson appointed Executive Director

February 23, 2009 – MusiKiva Canada appoints its first Board of Directors

January 22, 2009 – MusiKiva Canada is recognized as a not-for-profit corporation in accordance with the provisions of the Canada Corporations Act and the Income Tax Act of Canada

Summer 2005 – Shannon Robinson visits Kageno site in Rwanda

Local charity Musikiva connects kids in Calgary and Kenya through song
Published October 22, 2009  by Garth Paulson in Music Features
Corey Pierce

“The idea came from a trip that I took to Tanzania and Rwanda about four years ago in 2005,” explains Musikiva’s executive director Shannon Robinson. “I was travelling with another NGO and got to see the impact an NGO can have on poverty and the living conditions there. When I was in Rwanda, I also ran into a couple guys who were the co-founders of yet another NGO [Kageno Worldwide Inc.], a grassroots not-for-profit that’s doing work in Kenya and Rwanda. I stayed in touch with them and one of the things they do is an art exchange program between kids in New York and kids in Kenya. They were thinking that music might be a good fit for that. We’ve been dialoguing ever since and that’s where the birth of Musikiva came from.”

Having worked for years in Calgary as a musical therapist, Robinson is well aware of the benefits the treatment can have on troubled children. Musical therapy offers participants a direct and universal form of expression, without the possibly intimidating circumstances of other forms of therapy.

“The one key element of music therapy is the non-verbal aspect to it; you don’t have to use words,” Robinson says. “They can actually be expressive and communicate and share experiences through making music. There’s lots of communication that can happen through their musical interactions; through playing instruments like drumming and even singing — even vocalizing — there’s a lot of connection that can happen between kids when they’re involved in singing sounds or even singing songs that they all loved and have grown up with.”

This universal element will be especially helpful when it comes to Musikiva’s music exchange program. Instead of simply working with children in Calgary and Kenya separately, the music exchange program involves sharing the music that is made in each group with the other. While the two groups of children may never come face-to-face, they will hear, and potentially contribute to, what each group is creating in their respective sessions.

“We’re going to start in Calgary with our three groups here,” Robinson says. “Each group will participate in music therapy on a weekly basis for a few weeks. A lot of the music that is created will be recorded and that music is going to be taken over to Kenya by other music therapists and then those same music therapists will work with the groups of kids over there on a daily basis for a couple of weeks doing a similar program. Their music will be recorded as well, but the exchange component is that the music that was created in Canada will be shared with the Kenyan kids and then that music that’s created in Kenya will come back to Canada and will be shared here with the Canadian kids.”

While Robinson hopes that Musikiva can grow to include other parts of the world over time, for now she is focused on and excited about the Calgary-Kenya exchange and the possibilities of what might emerge from it.

“To be totally honest, I don’t have any expectations in terms of what [the music created is] going to sound like,” she says. “My only expectation is there is going to be this really cool creative process and an opportunity for the kids to interact with each other through the music even though they may not be actually physically seeing each other.”