The Sanremo Music Festival
announced it will host the UNICEF-sponsored "Orchestra
Reciclados de Cateura", a 24-member orchestra from an
impoverished neighborhood in the capital of Paraguay whose
instruments are made completely from discarded materials.
The orchestra will perform at this year's 67th edition of the
festival to be held February 7-11 at the Ariston Theatre.
"The world gives us rubbish, and we transform it into music,"
said orchestra conductor Fabio Chavez, who leads the musicians
aged 10-30 in a diverse repertoire from classical to pop,
Beatles to Frank Sinatra, with some heavy metal and soundtracks
mixed in.
Cateura is an informal settlement situated above a landfill
in Asuncion, the capital city of one of the poorest countries in
Latin America, where one child in six under age 5 is
malnourished.
The neighborhood's children build instruments from what they
find there - buckets, spoons, metal pipes, rope, cardboard, tin
cans, and a variety of other recyclable materials - to make
violins, violas, cellos, basses, guitars, flutes, saxophones,
trumpets, and percussion instruments.
The orchestra has become a symbol for UNICEF, showing how
music, culture, and commitment can take children off the streets
and give them a chance to change their future.
UNICEF also sponsors a program in Paraguay called "Abrazo"
(hug) that aims to combat the problem of children working on the
street.
The organisation has opened 37 centres that provide medical
assistance and educational support in order to help families so
that their children don't have to work.
"Like the children of Cateura, many other children have a
dream, and to make it happen they need opportunities," said
UNICEF Italy spokesperson Andrea Iacomini.
"We promote music, dance, and song to ensure that children
have not only the right to survival, health, and education, but
also the opportunity to dream and build a better future, despite
poverty, war, and hunger," he said.
"For example in Lebanon, which hosts more than a million
Syrian refugees, UNICEF supports the 'Hoops Club' project to
allow the most vulnerable children the chance to study, play
sports, practice music and singing - all of which are important
activities to alleviate the difficulty of their condition as
refugees".
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