Telling the story of real people making real change
It’s a week-day morning and Greg Snell and David Copithorne are on their way to Kurunegala to embark on a week-long adventure with the youngsters of The Music Project. Their brief is a documentary they will shoot in Kurunegala, then Mullaitivu and at the Jaffna Music Festival.
Greg, 29, is the founder of Travel Global Think Local which he established last year. The Canadian-born Adventure Tour Guide won Australia’s
All smiles: Greg with the students and (left inset) Playing in harmony: David takes aim with his camera. Pix courtesy TGTL
Best Jobs in the World competition in 2013, earning the opportunity to travel around South Australia for six months in 2014 caring for wildlife. This inspired him to begin his own destination travel business and he now lives in Germany while discovering the world and being paid for it as a content creator and photographer. Travel Global Think Local is his newest initiative to document people and projects through travel.
The Music Project is close to his heart, as last year he spent time with the project as research for Travel Global Think Local (TGTL). “I was scouting for projects and Sri Lanka came highly recommended,” he says. “So I spent a week with the kids and knew I’d definitely come back to film an episode on the amazing work that the project does.”
The Music Project was established four years ago, inspired by El Sistema of Venezuela which has over 300,000 children playing in 400 plus orchestras. The idea is quite simple-by bringing together gifted children and their families from the North and the South, the project aims to foster dialogue and interaction among their communities while developing the musical talents of the young students. The project currently works with schools in the Kurunegala and Mullaitivu districts engaging over 400 schoolchildren. Through after-school clubs at six schools these students learn music with qualified instructors in English. They interact with each other through the Unite programmes and also when they perform together at events like the Jaffna Music Festival which featured a special programme for children. The Music Project will engage with these students throughout an 
eight year-long pilot project.
“We’re just beginning to see the results,” observes Saluka Kotagama who has been with the initiative since 2013. “The families are interacting with each other voluntarily-when we host our Unite programmes twice a year they visit each other’s houses for lunch and go shopping. It’s wonderful to see the impact.”
On their part both Greg and David have immersed themselves in the project. After four days working with the children and their instructors, following the progress in three schools in Kurunegala and two schools in Mullaitivu, they would head to the music festival over the weekend. “It’s such a powerful story,” says Greg. “Plus it fits so well with our vision for TGTL as a project that actively engages with positive change.”
The duo have planned for 10 episodes at present and have already filmed an episode on aboriginal businesses in Australia. “We were supposed to go to India next but I immediately changed the schedule when we heard that the music festival was coming up,” Greg tells us. “As soon as funding (they’ve raised 26,467 Canadian Dollars from 293 backers as of now) was confirmed for the episode David and I began making plans.”
David, as Director of Photography, is looking forward to relating the story through the eyes of the Music Project’s young students and their instructors. “We want to share the story through the eyes of the subject. Our passion is to tell a story about real people initiating real change and hopefully shed some light on the fantastic work they do.” The TGTL site will carry information on the project featured in each episode with contact details for those who’d like to be involved.
Keep posted to http://www.sundaytimes.lk/150531/ for the TGTL travel documentary series, which will premiere in the near future. Visit http://www.sundaytimes.lk/150531/ for more on how you can donate or work with The Music Project.