Over the last few months, our Rebel Musicians have been working to create an anthem of hope and awareness for the NSPCC’s Together for Childhood project. This project works with local communities in Plymouth to make them safer for children; with a particular focus on preventing child abuse in families facing difficult situations such as domestic abuse, drug or alcohol misuse and mental health problems, as well as preventing child sexual abuse.

The NSPCC reached out to our Executive Producer for Youth, Education and Training, Dulcie Fenton, and one of our fantastic Music Practitioners, Rose Kimberley, to commission an anthem for their celebration event in Ernesettle. This was a fantastic opportunity for our young people to be part of something amazing and use their songwriting skills that they have honed through our ReBel Music and Music Production Classes. 

Our young people were set the challenge and, out of the 15 entries, the winner was Ellathea Hardy with her track ‘Not Your Fault’: a beautiful tribute to using your voice, speaking out when something feels wrong and knowing that anything that happens to you is not your fault and there are people around you that can help. 

Ellathea’s song was produced and recorded at dBs Studios in Plymouth and sent to the NSPCC who were overjoyed; Ellathea was invited to perform ‘Not Your Fault’ at the celebration in Ernesettle, and her song will form part of the pack that goes out to families and the community to serve as a source of empowerment for those affected by childhood sexual abuse, and as a tool to open up discussions between adults and children around this issue. 

This is really special for Ellathea, one of our longest standing ReBels, who started with us in Summer 2022 having never picked up an instrument. She is now self-taught in several instruments and is a very talented singer/songwriter. We are thrilled she has had the opportunity to create something really special that is going to positively impact a lot of young people in our city. 

Ellathea was very grateful for the opportunity to work on this project: 

“It was a really valuable opportunity to work with the NSPCC on this project as it allowed me to use the creative skills I have developed as part of Rebels to create a song with a message that extends far beyond just me. The work the NSPCC do is absolutely vital, and the message I wanted the song to carry was for all of the young people that they work with. Getting to perform 'Not Your Fault' at this event, and working with both the NSPCC and Rebels has been a privilege and I am very grateful to have been able to utilise my creativity for such a good cause.”

Our Executive Producer for Youth, Education and Training, Dulcie Fenton, was thrilled to be a part of this collaboration:

“For us, it was such an honour that NSPCC reached out to us and wanted to work with the participants from our music programme. It was a really special and powerful moment to have arts and music used as a vehicle for change-making, it can have such an impact. And it's great that organisations like the NSPCC are so forward-thinking and using music as a tool to facilitate these conversations. It's great to see how highly they value the arts at a time when they are being slowly stripped away. It's so important that we start to recognise how powerful music can be and what it's used for.”

If you would like to learn more about our ReBel Classes or Together for Childhood the links are here:

ReBels: https://barbicantheatre.co.uk/our-classes/

Together for Childhood: https://www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/our-services/together-for-childhood/