Shape & Express Your Identity
How do I feel safe offline and connected online?
Shape & Express Your Identity is a project that promotes the mental well-being of students in newcomer classes at secondary schools. During a creative project week, students in Amsterdam explore music, dance, video, and other art forms, culminating in a spectacular final performance. Throughout the week, online mental well-being serves as the central theme.
We bring the online world back offline: students collaborate face-to-face, build meaningful connections, and develop self-confidence and self-expression. They leave the project with practical insights into how social media influences them and how they can take greater control over their own online experiences.
The Project Week
The week begins with an interactive session led by an educational psychologist, who engages students in conversations about social media and its impact on their lives. The project officially kicks off with a performance and talk by a well-known artist, inspiring students to start creating music themselves.
During the following three project days, participants work together to create a complete live performance. They are divided into six creative teams:
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Songwriting & Vocals: writing songs and rap lyrics, developing vocal technique, and building stage presence
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Music Production: creating beats and soundscapes, producing, and recording music
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Video Production: producing music videos in collaboration with the songwriting team
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Set Design & Styling: designing costumes and stage décor using textiles and other creative materials
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Performance Team: learning choreography and preparing the live show
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Marketing & Promotion: creating vlogs, posters, and flyers to promote the event
Our teaching team connects with young people through their own world and interests. Every instructor is an active professional artist, bringing real-world experience and authentic inspiration into the classroom.
On the final day, students present their work in an inspiring and unifying live performance—a celebration of creativity, authenticity, and collaboration that everyone can be proud of. Creative, authentic, and created together.
Why Shape?
Mental health among young people is under pressure. Research by the Netherlands Institute for Social Research (Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau) shows that 60% of secondary school students in Amsterdam struggle with mental and emotional issues such as low self-esteem, anxiety, loneliness, or depression. Over the past four years, this percentage has increased by 10%.
With Shape & Express Your Identity, we open up the conversation: about self-image, safety, and connection, both online and offline. Through music and creativity, we encourage awareness and reflection. Because are you the director of your own life, or are you being shaped by your environment?
Participate with your school?
In the 2025/2026 school year, a pilot took place at Montessori Lyceum Oostpoort in Amsterdam. In 2026/2027, we will expand to other cities in the Randstad region.
Interested in joining? Contact project leader Rutger van Scheers via r.vanscheers@soundsforfreedom.com .
Want to learn more?
Download the brochure!
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Pilot February 2025
In February 2025, the Shape pilot started at the Montessori Lyceum Oostpoort in Amsterdam. For three days, ninety students from newcomer classes immersed themselves in everything that comes with making a music show: from songwriting and music production to dance, styling, vlogging and video. In the songwriting workshops, the focus was on what the impact of social media has on your emotional life and how you can deal with insecurity.
Every day a well-known artist performed, and during the final show the students themselves shone with performances, but also behind the scenes in the production and technique and the décor. An inspiring kick-off, which tastes like more!
After movie pilot
Curious about the pilot?
Watch the after movie!
