Vision
Our vision is for blind and partially sighted children, including those with additional disabilities, to have the best possible chance to meet their musical needs and aspirations and fulfil their potential.
Values
Our core value is that visual impairment and other disabilities should not prevent children and young people accessing appropriate musical opportunities.
Aims
Our aims are:
(a) to support and enhance the lives of the 25,000 blind and partially-sighted children in the UK, including those with additional disabilities, in their engagement with music, and
(b) to promote high quality music provision for all children and young people with disabilities, where this would benefit those with a visual impairment.
Ambers Impact
In the past year (2019/20):
- Amber supported nearly 600 blind and partially sighted children to engage with music throughout the UK.
- 266 Music Awards were made of which 61 were to children new to Amber.
- We reached 91 children through our two-week summer school music workshops held at Linden Lodge.
- The Little Amber and AmberPlus schemes supported 148 families and 152 children throughout the year.
- Our AmberPlus Music Makers workshop programme supported 91 children and young people across 7 schools nationwide.
- Amber Sound Touch, a ground-breaking digital resource for teaching music to blind children was launched nationally in June 2020 in partnership with the ISM Trust.
- With Music in Mind, a new service specifically designed for families who have a visually impaired child with a life-limiting neurodegenerative disease, such as Batten disease was launched, also in partnership with the ISM Trust, in November 2020.
“Little Amber is a fantastic scheme. I’m so grateful as it means so much to my son, and to see him enjoying the music and smiling and laughing and participating is a mother’s dream.”