Rita SLAIBY CHAHWAN,

Educator and musical awakening teacher

After a long career in the field of education, I was selected to follow the EUTERPE training. I embarked on this adventure and I had exactly the same attitude and the same questions as yours following the presentation of Mo Tommaso:

⎯ What is the starting point and what would be the ending point?

⎯ How do I interpret the reactions of young people?

⎯ How do I construct the sessions?

⎯ How do I assess the success or failure of the sessions?

Not finding answers in purely theoretical and even biographical works, I let myself go to live an experience that goes beyond words and recognized language. The first stage of the training targeted a better knowledge of ourselves, of our weaknesses, of our abilities, the emergence of a free identity, of a different feeling daring to challenge the self-control that we exercise in our daily life.

It was a period of sowing but the harvest took place gradually with the young people, from session to session, from reaction to reaction, sometimes through a touch, or a look, a mixture of colors associated with a sound, a common feeling that united young people and teachers. All this experience allowed me to realize that it is impossible to understand the peculiarity of the EUTERPE method without living it.

The pleasure of the young people, the enthusiasm and the involvement that they showed during the session, formed the solid basis of our interventions; our responses to their expectations based on empathy, understanding their reactions and the flexibility of the framework have enabled us, and them, to go far and improve their situation.

As an indication which is not restrictive, we mention:

⎯ Switching from an incoherent   speech to a coherent speech

⎯ Disinhibitions

⎯ Taking remarkable initiatives

⎯ Communication and group   work

⎯ Reproducing sounds

⎯ Playing music as a duo

In conclusion, parents and professionals from institutions which take care of young people confirm our own evaluation of the results of the method.

"EUTERPE" goes beyond the walls of the Convent of GHOSTA to become the experience of each of us, settling into our daily life, transforming us into a tool at the service of humanity.