User:Marilyn Fowles/sandbox

= The Music Man Project =

The Music Man Project (MMP) is a full-time music education service specifically for children and adults with learning disabilities. Founded and based in Southend on Sea, Essex, it is run by volunteers and provides accessible music tuition and performance opportunities across the UK and overseas.

Origin
The MMP originated as the Southend Mencap Music School in 1999, available to children with learning disabilities aged 7 to 19 years on Saturday mornings. It was founded by former deputy head teacher and disability rights campaigner David Stanley BEM.

The Saturday sessions continued at the Eastwood Academy up to summer 2013 and then moved to Kingsdown School Southend until 2023. They now take place in St Laurence Church Hall, Eastwood, Southend.

In 2012 the Saturday music school was expanded to six days a week. This was the start of the Music Man Project as a specialist full-time music education service for adults, held in various locations in Southend on Sea.

The MMP was established as a separate national charity in Jun 2019 (charity number 1188041).

MMP In Southend
Supported by Southend Music Education Hub the MMP introduced a Musical Role Models Programme in 2017, where a group of MMP students travel to local schools and perform original music to mainstream primary schoolchildren to raise disability awareness.

The MMP also performs at civic engagements, concerts, private and public parties across the City and holds a Christmas concert each year.

Local MMP supporters include the Southend Mayor, who selected the project as one of his chosen charities for 2023; Anna Firth MP, who raises awareness of the charity in parliament; Tim Gocher OBE, who collaborated with the MMP in Kathmandu, Nepal; Lee Mead, who performed with the MMP at a concert at the Cliffs Pavilion in memory of Sir David Amess MP and the late Sir David Amess MP who was president of the MMP charity.

In July 2023 the MMP founder David Stanley was granted freedom of the City of Southend.