James Harris's Hadrian's Wall walk

Our son James is 17. He's autistic and brilliant and very, very musical. Most Fridays, he goes to Sound Lab, a music-making project for neurodivergent and learning-disabled young people which has been running in the former mining town of Radstock, in Somerset, for four years. It's where - to take a couple of examples – he's perfected Shot By Both Sides by Magazine and T-Rex's Children Of The Revolution, and found new connections & friends.

The current funding for the sessions comes to an end in July. Evolve Music, who lead it, need to raise the money to keep it going – and, if possible, to expand it to other towns in the South West.

But they need your help, which is why James, his Dad, and his sister Rosa are aiming to walk 70-ish miles between Carlisle and Newcastle and fill some of the gap.

Led by two professional musicians, Charlie and Luke, and supported by an inclusion worker Lilly, the sessions are hugely valued by local neurodivergent young people and their families. They are great fun, help develop young people's musicality and team work and social skills. The connections between autism and music are still overlooked and under-explored: Sound Lab is a great example of the magic they can produce.

There is no other community music provision for neurodivergent young people in our area. It would also be great if its creativity and magic could also happen elsewhere.

Evolve Music is a South West-based community music charity that uses collaborative music-making to build confidence, connection and support communities to thrive.