Attivismo civico & Terzo settore
Tomorrow’s leaders need sleep too
Supernanas. How to get your kids to sleep, have fun and give to charity in one fell swoop.
There is a limit to how many lullabies an adult can sing in a lifetime. The problem is that children love to listen to them, over and over and over again. And while some modern children are just as happy singing along to Lady Gaga as they are to Humpty Dumpty, our grandparents might cringe when the kids start running around the house screaming: “I’ll get him hot, show him what I’ve got … yeah,” at the top of their little, hoarse voices.
Spanish parents don’t have this problem anymore. Last year a non profit organisation called TheLoveComesFoundation convinced some of Spain’s most popular musicians to record revisited versions of the nation’s favourite songs for children. The result? A project called Supernanas (super lullabies).
“Our aim was twofold” explains Alessandro Madeddu, one of the founders of the Foundation. “ We wanted to provide young parents with a means of sharing special time with their children by listening to music they both enjoy. And then we wanted to raise money to fund our other educational programmes in nurseries and schools”.
The songs, which can be downloaded from the website and cost 1 euro each, raised the foundation 6 thousand euros last year. This year, as well as selling the songs individually through the website and iTunes, there will be a CD distributed in Spain by Fnac and all the proceeds will go to Save the Children.
“We called our lullabies ‘super’ because we wanted them to reflect our values. So its not just the fact that the songs are played by contemporary artists, but that the artists chose to donate their music to our project because they support our mission. Its not just about getting the kids to bed but sharing something with them,” says Madeddu, who left his job as a concept developer for a large creative design company four years ago to develop his own creative endeavor.
And this is the philosophy that drives all of TheLoveComesFoundation’s projects, which focus on educating tomorrow’s decision makers and leaders. “The idea is that its easier to teach people things while they are doing things they do anyway,” like listening to lullabies. “And its also easier to teach children, to get them to become your spokespeople so that when they go home they can teach their parents”.
TheLoveComesFoundation will launch their new Supernanas CD on December 13 in Barcelona’s most scenographic theatre, the Liceu.
