African weblog

To follow the activities of Music Fund the coming months, best is to switch to our Middle East blog on which we will be posting all our messages.

On 7th December 2006, Queen Paola of Belgium honored us with a visit. She came to the piano-workshop of Pol De Winter in Antwerp (Pianomobil), where she met with the equipe of Music Fund, members of our board, and especially with students from Ramallah (Palestine) and Maputo (Mozambique), who from September to December 2006 have been following a training programme in how to repair and tune of music instruments, as well as their teachers, instrument experts who have taught introductary courses in Maputo and Ramallah, and now have these young students in their workshops in Belgium. You can find pictures of this visit on the webpage with Music Fund podcasts and here is an amateur videoclip with some images of this visit:

Today we were welcomed at the Embassy of Mozambique in Brussels for a private meeting with Ambassador Mrs Maria-Manuela Dos Santos Lucas. She wanted to meet with Anselmo and Fernando before they will leave Belgium at the end of their three months internship. I also took my godchild Miguel André from Angola with me to this meeting. They all spoke Portugese, so I only understand part of the conversation, but insisted that they speak Portugese so that Fernando and Anselmo could speak at ease with the Ambassador. We were kindly invited for lunch at the Embassy and had a long conversation about the project, their studies and many other topics.

this evening, Anselmo Chissaque, our student from Maputo, was interviewed on the Flemish radio station Studio Brussel about his internship at Pol De Winter's piano-workshop in Antwerp. you can listen to it on the internet. goto: http://outpost.vrt.be/privemp3/musicfund_20061122_150928.htm Anselmo with his fellow-student and now good friend Iyad from Ramallah

Anselmo & Iyad

good friends

Anselmo, Fernando, Lukas, Iyad

on 2 and 3rd November, Iyad and Anselmo joined Pol in a cartrip from Antwerp to Paris to go get a piano there. Pol profited from this job to take both of them on this ride and allow them to see something of the big French Apple, taking some time off for sightseeing. it is wonderful to see the friendship which started between these two students.

Iyad & Anselmo & Eifel Tour

On top of their daily work as interns in the workshop of Pianomobil, learning how to repair and build pianos, every Monday and Thursday evening, Iyad and Anselmo also join lessons given at Pianomobil to a group of students learning to tune pianos. This gives them a very full programme, allowing them to learn a lot within their short stay of three months in Antwerp.