The Youth Music Initiative is a funding programme set up by the Scottish Government in 2005 following the report ‘What’s Going On ‘ to improve music making opportunities for young people across Scotland. There are several parts to the fund, which are all overseen by Creative Scotland.
The YMI fund aims to
- Create access to high-quality music-making opportunities for young people aged 0-25 years, particularly for those that would not normally have the chance to participate.
- Enable young people to achieve their potential in or through music making.
- Support the development of the youth music sector for the benefit of young people.
There are three strands to the funding:
- The School-Based Music-Making (Formula Fund) is a targeted fund for Scotland’s 32 Local Authorities. It has a set of target and groups with its primary delivery commitment that “every school pupil in Scotland should be offered a year of free music tuition by the time they leave primary school”. This is the part of programme that the YMI team in the Borders works under which as the name suggests, is a fixed grant worked out as a formula based largely upon the total numbers of pupils in each Local Authority.
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Access to Music-Making aims to improve access to high-quality music-making opportunities for young people aged 0-25 years, outwith school time. It is open to organisations and individuals in the community and delivers grants between £1k – £40k. Targeted funding applications are possible for up to £90k for activity which strategically address the aims of the programme.
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The Strengthening Youth Music part of the programme aims to support individuals, organisations and music networks to undertake strategic action or training to strengthen the youth music sector in Scotland. Like the access fund it is open to organisations and individuals in the community and delivers grants between £1k – £20k. Again targeted funding applications are possible for up to £50k for activities which strategically address the aims of the programme.
YMI in the Borders
The Youth Music Initiative team in the Borders consists of four music tutors , working across our schools, who are supported by the Creative Learning Officer. We are part of Education, within Children and Young People’s Services.
Each year we apply to the YMI Formula Fund for the staff team, resources and the external projects that we run. We work in many of our Primary schools, all of the Support and Complex Needs units and some of the High schools. We compliment the work done by the peripatetic Curriculum Support Teachers (Music), who also deliver lessons in our primary schools, and we ensure that we visit each primary school in the region between the two teams.
The YMI tutors are highly accomplished musicians and have taught in schools for many years. Whilst they all have their own specialism they deliver whole class music making lessons, using a wide range of instruments including ukuleles, drums, tin whistles, keyboards and the accordion, as well as teaching singing and music technology .
Our funding enables us to deliver a number of regular projects provided by external partners, such as the primary school tour by Scottish Opera and Mat the Hat’s ‘Big Drum Adventure’ as well as other one off projects by touring musician’s, such as the Ghanaian Kakatsitsi drummers.
For more details about what the work YMI team in the Borders is doing and some of our activities have a look at some of our project posts.
