"I teach music and songwriting in a maximum security men's prison to long term offenders with a focus on rehabilitation & mental health. Last year I helped one of my students complete cert 3 in music sound production. He now runs a recording studio inside the jail and we've been able to record songs written and performed by inmates (from short term to life sentences) encouraging other inmates to choose a new path. Music is contagious, we are watching it save and change people one song at time."

"In 2014, at the age of 22, I became severely ill with Chronic Lyme Disease. As a once vibrant and energetic person, I was now bed ridden and wheelchair bound, and have been for the majority of the past 10 years. My whole world turned upside down. My illness isolated me from friends and family and things I once loved, that were core to my happiness, now only seemed like a fantasy and a life that would never become reality again. What got me through the dark times and through all these years, was music and songs which really spoke to me. Whilst being bedridden and when I had the energy, I started to teach myself guitar and write my own songs which became a life savour in healing for me ~ helping me express my thoughts and feelings when I didn't know how.

One event was particularly painful in which, due to illness, I was unable to attend my granddads funeral. I however had written and recorded a song especially for him, which he got to hear the day before he passed away and which was also played at his funeral. It was a way I could be there for him when circumstances limited my presence.

Family, life, and joy are things that I was robbed of, but music has been instrumental in bringing a lot of that back for me."

" After my wife encouraged me to sign up for a program called Weekend Warriors. This program took older people who had been playing music as a hobby or maybe had even been in a band in their youth and put them together into bands. Each band chose 4 songs and then had targeted coaching for 4 weeks, culminating in a gig for all our friends and rellies at a local club.

This was the moment when I went from playing at home and wishing I could somehow get into a band somewhere, to performing in one. I learned that I could get together with other musicians and contribute to the final output - both in terms of offering ideas and in my playing.

More importantly, it was through this that I met other players, not just in the band I was put in, but across the other 3 or 4 bands that performed that night - and ultimately lead to me playing in the band I've been playing with for getting close to 20 years now.” (paraphrased)