Outreach

The Edinburgh Samba School is committed to the promotion of Brazilian music and culture, and to the use of music as a holistic social, education and community activity. This is how samba schools in Brazil operate, and over the last fifteen years we have seen the success of such activity in Scotland. We run a variety of outreach and education projects within Scotland with people of all ages and walks of life. We have teams of experienced workshop leaders who are able to facilitate workshops in all aspects of Brazilian carnival culture. Please contact us for further information.

TESS Outreach Edinburgh

It has been our pleasure to support organisations such as Headway, Enlighten and the Thistle Foundation with bespoke workshops, and members of the samba school have also been involved with setting up drumming groups for both children and adults in Craigmillar, Wester Hailes and Leith.  We have collaborated with other Edinburgh based arts and community organisations, such as the Indian Music and Dance Collective, the Fountainbridge Collective and the EdRush collaborative arts festival.

We have also performed for free for various charitable causes, such as Comic Relief, Save the Children, The Sick Kids hospital, Parents Like Us, The RNLI, Oxfam, One World Beat, the Prince's Trust, Make Poverty History, The Great Scottish Walk, and many more. TESS are also proud to support Tollcross Primary School’s annual multicultural festival.

TESS Outreach Brazil

As a community music based charity, we are committed to reinvesting in Brazilian social projects, similar to our own. In 2004, we built a relationship with Negros d'Angola - a community band working with street kids in Olinda, in Northeast Brazil. We donated financial aid to the group, which allowed them to purchase material to make enough drums so the group could parade in the Olinda Carnival 2005. The drums will be a permanent asset which the group can use in its community work in and around Olinda. Please read their letter.

In early 2006 the group’s leader, Mestre Allysson Pereira da Silva Velez, hand made a set of drums especially for use by Edinburgh school children as part of the Big Drum Adventure project, organised by members of TESS in collaboration with Edinburgh Council. This project has now worked with children in over 40 primary schools, and the highlight so far was kicking off Edinburgh’s annual Fanfare Concert at the Usher Hall in November 2006. Allysson was a guest of Edinburgh Council for this performance, and during his stay in Edinburgh became a firm friend of both TESS and a whole generation of Edinburgh’s primary school children! He also assisted TESS with the recording of our new CD, and some of the proceeds from this will be used to support his work in Brazil.

In addition, proceeds from a charity calendar produced by the band were donated to Task Brasil, a charity who improve the lives and support the needs of children and pregnant teenage girls living on the streets of Brazil.