I am music

The participatory development of the Protective Learning Environment (PLE) strategy highlights the crucial role music plays in children's education. The ongoing I am music programme is in line with this recognition and aims to enhance life skills while promoting school attendance and improving retention. Adopting a girl-centred approach to address the lack of progress in girls' rights, the programme has successfully implemented the El Sistema methodology in three pilot music centres, enhancing children's life skills through collaborative singing and playing. In doing so, the programme aims to unlock their potential, encourage personal growth and guide them to make positive life choices, diverting them from risky situations and facilitating family and community networking. Children who participate in music activities find a supportive environment that extends beyond the classroom and positively influences their social interactions in the wider community, reducing aggression and increasing self-control, confidence and self-esteem, building teamwork, discipline and respect.

Music, as part of Cameroonian culture, transcends cultural boundaries, making UNICEF's I am music programme a powerful tool for Ministries of Education to promote the growth and development of Cameroonian children practically and gently. Based on the co-creation process that the programme advocates, there is a strong institutionalisation and ownership of the programme within the education system, as it is integrated into the music curriculum of teacher training colleges. The El Sistema methodology, the child rights approach and musical pedagogy have been included in the mandatory curriculum for teachers, and all music teachers in the country have been trained in the child rights approach, the El Sistema methodology and musical pedagogy.

Ownership by government partners, beneficiaries and artists, respect for cultural specificities, the pilot phase and the promotion of co-creation and a bottom-up participatory process with the main beneficiaries of the programme (namely adolescent girls and boys) contribute to the successful adoption and eventual scaling-up of the programme.