TOMODACHI Goldman Sachs Music Outreach Program 2023

On July 21, the TOMODACHI Goldman Sachs Music Outreach Program was held at Yoyogi Yamano Hall.

Twenty-nine cast members from HEART Global, a U.S. non-profit organization, and 70 children ranging in grades from 1st grade of elementary school to senior year in high school gathered from foster care facilities in Tokyo, Chiba, and Kanagawa to participate in a song and dance workshop with 35 employees from the facilities and 15 Goldman Sachs volunteers. The children performed a show they created in a song-and-dance workshop.

The program is designed to allow participants: (1) to experience the joy of opening their hearts and minds to new challenges, and (2) to learn the thrill of creating something new together with people they have never met before. It is expected that the participants will expand their own world by interacting with people of different ages, nationalities, positions, and cultural backgrounds.

The participants, who were surprised by the cast members from 10 different countries, smiled as time went on and challenged themselves to learn difficult dances and English songs with the cast members. A fourth grader from Tokyo said, “This is so much fun. I never thought I could dance,” and a 6th grader said, “It’s amazing that we can have such a good time together even if we don’t understand a word of the language.”