Merida #3

Fe Y Alegria

Fe y Alegria (Hope and Joy) school is in a stunning location up in the mountains outside Merida. There are 500 children in this nucleo in a relatively poor area, and this nucleo is a rare example in El Sistema of an in-school program, in this case at a Catholic school (kindergarten until 6^th grade). The wife of Jésus Perez is the director here. She explained that the students come from different socio-economic backgrounds, and that it is a cheap and accessible school for families in the mountains.

Currently, every student participates in music lessons once a week which includes two hours of private lessons and choir in the morning, two hours of ensembles and orchestra in the afternoon. In addition there are music theory classes. There is a core group of teachers which is supported by additional staff in the afternoon.

There was a similar project in the area at another Catholic boarding school, run by a nun who is a friend of Dr. Abreu. She asked for the program to be set up at the school, but it only existed for five years before being moved to Fe Y Alegria. Other clubs and distractions lead to low student retention and interest. It was not often that we heard of a failed nucleo in our visit to Venezuela. There are still opportunities to participate in music activities at the school as "El Sistema doesn’t ever close its doors on students". They were at the old school for two years without instruments - teaching choir, music theory and sharing twelve recorders! It has been  six months only since the move to the new site, which provides more space and offers less additional activities.

We could hear students practicing constantly whilst we were talking during the school morning break. It turned out that they were preparing for an audition that day to perform in an upcoming presentation. Auditions had to be held as there weren't enough instruments for everyone to participate. They were also going to starting the children’s and youth choir that very day. Again we heard the Merida Maxim of 'listening and experiencing before theory' as they talked about setting up the new project at the school. 

We enjoyed taking a tour of the school and engaged some classes in the orchestra song Tatjana had taught us, whilst for the younger kids we performed Tucheze Tanzania!