Blue Hands

Music lessons to individuals with behavioral disorders like autism and Down syndrome is effective on their improvement process. Music helps them to coordinate their emotions and feelings, hearing sensation and sensory-motor skills, social behavior and concentration. Some of them have been learning music since the age of four and with years of continuous training and diligence they are now able to play such musical pieces as Chopin: Waltz No. 16 , Mozart: Turkish March, and Francis Lai: Love Story.

Ms. Aylin Agahi has been teaching piano to these children since 17 years ago. "Their learning ability is so different with each other and sometimes it takes around 11 years to learn and play a piece of music. One of the girls with sever autism is now able to play piano with closed eyes" she said.

This year she decided to make a new café in North Tehran named Downtism deriving from Down and Autism to support the idea of their occupation and engagement with people in the society.

Her music students are working half time in this Coffee Shop, they play and sing and she pays them for their work. Now more than 35 children with autism and Down syndrome are working there in different hours. 

According to the statistics of World Health Organization, the studies during the past 50 years have shown that the prevalence of autism is increasing worldwide. The statistics in Iran has shown that one in every 100 children is autistic.