MARTYN JOSEPH’S GLOBAL LET YOURSELF TRUST RAISES NEARLY £50,000 IN FIRST YEAR

Children’s projects in Palestine and Guatemala are first beneficiaries

LYT now turns its attentions to a Swansea charity

 

MJ and kids

The charitable trust launched by popular Welsh singer songwriter Martyn Joseph, has raised nearly £50,000 in its first year.

Cardiff-based Joseph last year fulfilled a long-held ambition to launch his own trust to benefit both global charities and grass roots “people” projects in the UK and beyond with legendary broadcaster Bob Harris becoming patron.

A gifted guitar player with a juggernaut voice, Joseph’s performances have taken him from arts centres in his native Wales to a 5,000 strong crowd at the Royal Albert Hall.

But in a career spanning three decades with sales of over a quarter of a million albums, Joseph has perhaps become as well known for his worldwide humanitarian work as for his powerful performances and high level connectivity with audiences on both sides of the Atlantic.

Named after one of his recent songs on the Songs for the Coming Home album, the Let Yourself Trust launched in the UK last June with three special fundraising performances over one weekend in Cardiff (Norwegian Church) Milton Keynes (The Stables) and Lancaster (Ashton Memorial). To mark the launch Martyn released an 11-track album Kiss the World Beautiful – Songs for the Let Yourself Trust with fresh recordings of some of his most affecting political and social justice songs and a striking new song Luxury of Despair, inspired by his recent visits to refugee camps.

Setting out to “provide a choice and a chance” Let Yourself Trust aims to support lesser known projects each year for a six month period, highlighting their work to a wider audience through Martyn’s gigs and social networks.

A fearless songwriter, long dubbed “The Welsh Springsteen”, he has campaigned both in person and in song for countless causes, focusing on trade justice, third world debt cancellation and human rights. His high impact songs range from a first person narrative from the perspective of a Kosovo refugee (‘The Good In Me Is Dead’) to ‘Five Sisters’, recounting the fate of siblings killed in an Israeli attack.

Martyn received an Amnesty International accolade for his work with the Brazilian Landless Workers’ Movement MST (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Terra) back in 2002 and released The Great American Novel EP in the wake of the 2003 invasion of Iraq with all proceeds benefitting War Child. Since then he has worked alongside or taken on the patronage of several international agencies and organisations, from Advantage Africa to Casa Alianza, which helps street children in Central America. World Vision, Canada’s The Stephen Lewis Foundation and Christian Aid are among other organisations to which he has turned his attention.

But it was a 2013 trip to Bethlehem for the Bet Lahem festival and in particular a visit to a children’s theatre project at a Palestinian refugee camp that triggered the formation of the Let Yourself Trust.

“My trip to the Middle East galvanised my thoughts on something I’d been thinking about for the last five years. I’d always been proud and privileged to lend my support to many causes during the length of my career – but I wanted to do something more and set up a visible platform alongside the music. Somewhere in the heat and dust of a Palestinian refugee camp I decided it was time to set up my own charitable trust to help fund projects at home and abroad that are making a difference in their communities.”

That led to the Alroward Cultural and Theatre Society in Bethlehem’s Aida Refugee Camp becoming the first funding project and the $10,000 money LYT raised through concerts and generous donations helped deliver a range of creative tools from musical instruments to digital cameras, books and paint brushes to the Alroward Children Arts Theatre.

Martyn and LYT Executive Director Justine Ferland (centre) with Heather and Greg Knox and the Project Somos children
Martyn and LYT Executive Director Justine Ferland (centre) with Heather and Greg Knox and the Project Somos children

In the second half of 2014 LYT turned its attentions to Guatemala’s Project Somos Children’s Village. Martyn met Project Somos’ founders (Heather and Greg Knox) at the Vancouver Folk Festival 15 years ago and has since supported their vision to set up a home for single mothers and their children suffering extreme poverty and the nurturing of their futures.

Martyn visited Project Somos at the start of 2015 to present a LYT cheque for $32,000 and performed a private concert for the village’s mothers, children and staff- the first they had experienced. Says Project Somos’ Executive Director Heather Knox:

“Martyn is obviously able to impart our vision to others while on stage and we are deeply moved. This will really support us moving forward”.

The organisation will use part of the donation to complete a guest facility for volunteers and visitors and help with the initial costs of receiving their next two families.

Martyn will return in 2016 with a group of volunteers to help build a music and arts room as part of a school being constructed on the site. It would become the only such facility for many miles around.

But now the Trust is focusing on a project closer to home with fundraising underway for  Zac’s Place – a homeless shelter in Swansea described as “ a safe haven for some of Swansea’s most alienated people”, run by Sean Stillman, who founded it 15 years ago. Vital to the Swansea community it provides over 2,000 meals a year, health care and a night shelter for 12 people, functioning on just £8,000 a year. Between now and June Martyn will be aiming to raise awareness of Zac’s Place in a bid to provide a year’s funding.

Says Sean :“The connection between the music of Martyn Joseph and the community of Zac’s Place not only goes back several years but shares many of the same questions, fears, hopes and dreams. We are delighted to share this partnership with LYT.”

Summing up Let Yourself Trust’s first year Joseph says:

“I’ve been amazed by the wonderful support we have received. Then results are stunning and I can’t begin to thank people enough. The visit to Project Somos showed us first-hand how Let Yourself Trust can make a difference. Now, in Zac’s Place, we couldn’t have found a more worthwhile UK-based project to support and I’m looking forward to helping their transforming work with the homeless in the same way we have helped those in Palestine and Guatemala.”

See Martyn’s introduction to the Let Yourself Trust and Bob Harris’s personal message at www.letyourself.net