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“Music can change the world because it can change people.” -- Bono
Hello everyone! When we sing or create music, we are using all parts of our brain; the front, back, left and right sides. This helps generate space for emotional, physical, spiritual or mental healing to occur. Among this week’s stories, we discover how music is being used to inspire Ukrainian youth while they rebuild bombed villages, and how it helps those with dementia remember and reconnect with others. Hope you enjoy this issue and have a wonderful week!
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YouTube
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At a bombed-out cultural center of a Ukrainian village, more than 200 young people held a daytime "clean-up rave," listening to techno and house dance music as they cleared away the rubble. According to AP News, nearly all of Yahidne's 300 residents were held in a basement for weeks by Russian forces; 11 died as a result. This is the eighth cleanup project so far by the Repair Together volunteers. Already, they have fixed 15 damaged homes in Yahidne and plan to build 12 houses in nearby Lukashivka for people whose homes were destroyed. "Volunteering is my lifestyle now," Tania Burianova, 26, told AP News. "I like electronic music and I used to party. But now it's wartime and we want to help, and we're doing it with music." The clean-up raves bring together those who have lost their nightclub community, helping them to regain a sense of normalcy and fun while helping damaged towns recover.
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Andrea Piacquadio | Unsplash
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A new study shows that when patients with dementia listen to their favorite songs, connectivity and responsiveness increase in their brains. Psyche Loui, director of the MIND Lab (Music Imaging and Neural Dynamics) and associate professor of music at Northeastern University, along with her team of music therapists, neurologists and geriatric psychiatrists identified how music bridges the gap between the brain's auditory system and the region that manages motivation. Their research found that music creates shortcuts that help bring thoughts back into the mind. Loui's research was sparked by her experiences playing music for nursing home residents. While playing music, she saw individuals, who struggled to finish their sentences, suddenly be able to harmonize and sing along. She hopes to extend the study to older adults with cognitive and neurodegenerative disorders, and expand the capacities of music therapy.
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Tomasz Derwicz | Wiślańska Organizacja Turystyczna
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A popular Polish tourist destination has been transformed as billboards and advertising banners have been removed from town streets. Wisla, a mountain resort lying not far from the Czech border, passed a law regulating and limiting street advertising in November 2020. The law required advertisers to get rid of the unsightly advertising by June 12. A series of before-and-after photographs entitled 'Wisla Unveils Herself' shows streets transformed. Fences once littered with advertising banners are now covered by creepers, and billboards have been removed from the sides of roads, allowing visitors to admire the town's beautiful natural surroundings.
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Jennifer Smith
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Sonya Bardati is working out six days a week to prepare for her 80th birthday on Aug. 9th which is when she will start her biggest rollerblading trip ever. Over seven days, Bardati will rollerblade through 350 kilometers of winding, hilly highways between Port Hardy and Parksville. Just recently she bought new rollerblades and enlisted personal trainer Jennifer Smith to help her. Road conditions will be challenging -- and risky as she has brittle bones -- but her second husband Ken will drive a van behind her. Bardati has lived an unexpected life, but rollerblading was always a constant, since the age of 12, when she was living in an orphanage. Decades ago in Victoria, Bardati rollerbladed to the store for groceries; and while wintering in Yuma, Arizona, she and her first husband Roberto rollerbladed to the local YMCA. Twice -- at age 59 and 60 -- she cycled across Canada. Bardati hopes to raise money for the BC SPCA, because that's where she and Roberto got her cat Holly five months before he died; she wants to help others find their own loving companions.
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Solar panels on the roof of Quartre Cantons secondary school. IES Quatre Cantons
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In Barcelona, a secondary school, residents' association, and the city council have teamed up to create a solar energy community that's growing, rooftop by rooftop, across the city. The solar panels that sit on the roof of Quatre Cantons secondary school power not only the school, but also 30 neighboring households, each of which receive 500W of electricity from it, cutting down their electricity bills by 25%. Due to Spanish law, solar installations can only supply power within a 500m radius (to compare, France and Portugal allot a 2km radius); but with 11 public buildings within 500m of the school that could also be installed with solar panels, the hope is that solar power could be extended across the locality. Eloi Badia, councilor for climate change and ecological transition, notes, "These energy communities are really special and they make it possible to find solutions that wouldn't otherwise be viable, but it isn't scalable for the whole city."
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