Through the window of Williamstown’s Mechanics Institute, one can hear a circle of people singing under the guidance of renowned Carols by Candlelight choral director Doug Heywood, who is so absorbed in the music he barely looks up from his music sheets.
His wife, Alex Cameron, is playing on a keyboard bought with part of a $1000 grant awarded by the Hobsons Bay Community Fund (HBCF).
Singing along is Heather Jobling, who last March founded the ParkinSong Victoria group for people with Parkinson’s, a degenerative brain disease that affects movement.
Diagnosed with the disease in 2006, Ms Jobling underwent brain surgery last September to reduce her reliance on medication, which she was taking every three hours.
“I’ve got two electrodes [in my brain] and they connect to a neurostimulator,” she said.
Ms Jobling was awake during the six-hour operation. “You’ve got to be able to speak and move according to direction as they’re putting the electrodes into the brain; they’ve got to be placed very particularly.”
Ms Jobling said she decided to do something to help people like herself.
The singing group meets at the institute on the third Thursday of every month at 2.30pm.
But even she didn’t foresee the benefits of people with Parkinson’s coming together to sing, benefits that have since been scientifically documented. “A lot of people with Parkinson’s have speech and swallowing problems. The voice becomes a lot softer.”
Her husband, Michael, said the group helped people whose diction was compromised.
“Doug [Heywood] puts everyone through 20 minutes of warm-up exercises and even with that exercise you can hear people’s voices start to improve,” he said.
Helen McVay, chairwoman of the HBCF grants committee, said the ParkinSong group was a perfect example of how a modest grant could make a big difference to people’s lives.
The fund, involving grants from $100 to $5000, is set to reach new beneficiaries.
“We’re trying to attract start-up groups who perhaps haven’t gone to council for funding,” Ms McVay said. “The areas we’ve selected this year are disability, health and well-being, food security and emergency relief, support for emerging communities, early learning education employment and training, youth, disability and aged services, and the environment.”
Applications close July 14. For more details, visit www.hbcommunityfund.org.au
