Finding musical ‘diamonds’ in the slums of Paradise City

Yanca shares a one-bedroom shack with eight relatives in a sprawling shantytown on the outskirts of Sao Paulo called Paraisopolis, or Paradise City.
The narrow path leading to their door is lined with the bottles and cans they collect to supplement their income.
“The guy who recycles these bottles didn’t pick them up and pay us,” Yanca said. “So we didn’t have money to buy bread.” Yanca rarely sees her father, who is in and out of jail, or her mother, a live-in maid who she says is working hard so her kids can get out of the slums.
But Yanca thinks she has finally discovered her own way out: music.
Less than a year ago, she joined a new classical music project at the Paraisopolis cultural center. Each student is given a violin and offered free — yet very intensive — classes once a week.
“Music has changed my life,” she said. “I study eight hours a day all of the instruments I have at home: violin, guitar and keyboard.” The program was dreamed up by Joao Carlos Martins, an acclaimed classical pianist whose career was cut short by injury.
He reinvented himself as a successful composer, and seven years ago he went to one of Brazil’s notorious favelas, or slums, in search of raw talent.
“I discovered so many naturally talented children that I decided to build a project,” he said. “In 10 years, I intend to build 1,000 string orchestras in underprivileged areas across our country.”
According to the latest census, more than 11 million Brazilians are living in favelas, many of them without access to running water or sewage systems.
And there are more than a billion people living in slums worldwide, according to Amnesty International. Across all continents, there are hundreds of millions of children who lack access to electricity, clean water and education despite living in cities with modern facilities and technology.
“One in three urban dwellers lives in slum conditions; in Africa, the proportion is a staggering six in 10,” said UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake in a report this year called “The State of the World’s Children” (PDF). “The impact on children living in such conditions is significant.
“From Ghana and Kenya to Bangladesh and India, children living in slums are among the least likely to attend school. And disparities in nutrition separating rich and poor children within the cities and towns of sub-Saharan Africa are often greater than those between urban and rural children.” (CNN)