Plastic pails and old paint buckets have become drums for a group of boys at the Sivananda Boys’ Home in Batu Caves, who are rehearsing a performance for a Deepavali celebration at the home.
The show caps a year in the GoodKids Academy Programme, an initiative that promotes positive mental health among young people. This year’s group of about 30 boys, from primary and secondary schools and mostly from lower-income families, has been attending drumming sessions every Friday night alongside schoolwork, sports and other activities.
Coordinator Naaraayini Balasubramaniam, 34, said the sessions were about more than music. She said bucket drumming helped with emotional regulation, as some of the boys might not have the words to express what they felt but could do so through music, and also taught them to set boundaries and get along with others.
She started the initiative in 2016 with her father, Balasubramaniam Somasundaram, a counsellor at the home, and her cousin, Koggelavani Muniandy, after her father found that conventional counselling alone was not enough to meet the boys’ emotional needs. The trio set up GoodKids Malaysia, and its academy programme now runs at about four centres in the country.
The boys compose their own rhythms, and the performance will be held shortly after Deepavali, as the boys usually return home to celebrate the festival with their families. Many of the programme’s graduates have gone on to tertiary education.
The programme relies on funding to provide free counselling, drum classes and other mental health activities, and the team is still looking for sponsors to supply paint buckets to be turned into drums.
Naaraayini said her father had told her that Deepavali was about bringing light where there was none, and she hoped the programme would bring some light into the boys’ lives.