Shropshire Music Foundation

The Shropshire Music Foundation is a not-for-profit organization which aims to improve the lives of children in war-torn countries through participation in music. Their mission is to "redress psychosocial trauma, advance emotional health, develop scholastic achievement, foster ethnic tolerance, promote peace, and improve the quality of life for war-affected children and adolescents through the establishment of on-going music education and performance programs."^[1]

Founded by Liz Shropshire in 1999, the Shropshire Foundation currently has programs in three countries. The Kosovo branch is helping children recover from the trauma of the ethnic cleansing that Serbian forces undertook in 1998.^[2][3] The SMF is helping children in Northern Ireland, where segregation of Protestants and Catholics has torn apart communities. In Uganda, the SMF is helping children who have been victims of child soldiery.^[4]

The Shropshire Music Foundation has an all-volunteer staff, and in many communities, the program is run by young adults who were so greatly influenced by Ms. Shropshire's foundation that they have committed to furthering the program. Groups have sprung up all over the world to benefit the Shropshire Music Foundation (which is run entirely off donations). Private contributors, music companies, and schools of music, such as the Eastman School of Music, are working to keep the foundation alive, as it has become financially threatened in recent years.

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