Our songwriting and performing workshops are based on the proven concept of trauma-informed care. They are specifically designed for residential facilities where young victims of severe emotional trauma are living and receiving therapy. In our program we create a safe expressive environment where breakthroughs happen, planting seeds of hope and healing that can forever transform young lives that have been torn apart by years of abuse, neglect, violence, addiction, and human trafficking.
We’ve worked successfully with girls and boys ranging in age from six to eighteen, representing all sorts of racial, ethnic, and social backgrounds. We’ve brought our program to foster care facilities and juvenile justice centers. In every case, we’ve been able to help the kids achieve significant emotional growth.
These children need and deserve all the help we can give them – because they are our children.
When you look firsthand at the work the kids take on during their Lost Voices experience, you can see the true confusion, hope, anguish, and beauty of it all. Here is a personal song written and sung with pride by a young boy about 14 years old during our June, 2019 program at the Whaley Children’s Center in Flint, Michigan:
LOVE YOU MOTHER
Mother, I wish I was with you all the time
Because you are always on my mind
When you hug me I feel fine
Yeah, Mother I wish I was with you all the time.
Your smile is like a sunny day
Mother I wish I was with you all the time
Because I was away for seven years
Me and you had tears, and I had some fears
…And I switch gears
I love you mother.
Mother, I love you with all my heart.
I will never forget you. You are like a never-ending river.
Mother I love you all the time
I wish I was with you all the time
Mother you are like a clock, because you never stop.
Here’s another song written and performed by five kids between the ages of thirteen and fifteen during the same session at the Whaley Children’s Center:
Broken Things Are Beautiful
CHORUS (sung by two of the girls):
Broken things are beautiful
Knock me down, I’ll get back up
Broken things, we are not weak
Knock me down I’ll get back on my feet
Broken things can be built back strong
You think I’m down, I think you’re wrong
You think I’m down, I think you’re wrong
RAP 1 (by one of the boys):
I been through so much I can’t remember all the pain
Say y’all understand but ya’ll can’t really feel my pain
Going place to place where nobody knew yo name
All you see is dark, you don’t see no sunny days
Steady being broke when I’m just tryin live
Only 13 and I then seen all there is
There is the ground that I stand on I don’t think you can live
CHORUS (by first two girls)
RAP 2 (by the other boy) FREE STYLE
CHORUS (by first two girls)
RAP 3: (by third girl)
I might be broken, but I’m not weak
Unless you been through what I been through
You can’t feel me
You just see what’s on them papers
Not the real me
Many nights that I cried, asking why me
Been in the system for a while and I’m 14
I been broken for some time, tranna build me
Put yo’self inside my shoes an try to feel me
CHORUS (by first two girls)