They say one man's junk is another one's treasure and for these kids in Paraguay this holds more than true. Children in the city of Cateura have come up with an interesting way to make recycled items into instruments from the landfill their parents work for. They created an orchestra called The Orchestra of Instruments Recycled From Cateura made up of 20 people and perform music ranging from Beethoven, The Beatles, Mozart, even Henry Mancini.
this amazing idea can be credited to music teacher and social worker, 37-year-old Favio Chavez. The teacher originally started the orchestra at the tiny music school in Cateura as a means to help the kids stay out of trouble. But his musicians have attracted so much attention that the children have traveled to different cities to perform and it's one step closer to making their dreams come true.
Never in a million years could I picture trash becoming an instrument. I'm so used to the generic idea of an instrument being made of metal, wood, or even plastic, that I didn't picture it otherwise. But this is an amazing idea and a wonderful opportunity for these kids who are less fortunate. Not only does it take a great amount of talent to make an instrument out of recycled matter, but it must be an even greater challenge learning how to play it!
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According to NBC News, Chavez started out with only 5 instruments in the classroom, prompting him to ask trash-picker Nicolas Gomez to make musical instruments out of recycled material for the younger children. And these kids have gained so much notoriety that their orchestra, "The Orchestra of Instruments Recycled From Cateura," have already performed in Brazil, Paraguay, and Colombia. They are also set to perform at an exhibit honoring them at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, Arizona. How awesome is that?!
But that's not all for these kids reaching super stardom at a fast pace. Paraguayan documentary filmmaker, Alejandra Amarilla Nash and film producer, __Juliana Penaranda-Loftu__s have been fans of the prodigies and even made a documentary on them called Landfill Harmonic. The filmmakers have helped spread publicity on the orchestra by creating a Facebook page and posting a trailer– which already reached over a million views– of the documentary on YouTube and Vimeo.
And this is just the beginning of an excellent future for these children who see this as a way out of their impoverished city where kids rarely have educational opportunities and usually become drug or alcohol addicts. Chavez himself stopped going to school after fifth grade because he needed to work to provide for his family. But he never lost his vision on making the impossible, possible.
I can't wait to see what these kids have in store for us next, and I'm sure this will be an amazing influence on other children worldwide. It proves to you that anything you want is possible as long as you put your mind to it and don't give up.
Embedded content: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFHTIhyNdhk
Image via Landfill Harmonic/facebook
