Music In Action Journal | Case Studies from the Sector
HISTORY AND GLP INVOLVEMENT
In 2016, Anis Barnat was walking through one of the many refugee camps of Greece, and noticed that children there lacked any structure to their lives. He phoned his friend Elisa Sologni, and they spoke about the problems that he saw. Migrant children in Greek refugee camps do not receive enough support, education and opportunity to recover from challenging backgrounds and navigate society and culture in their new host countries. They created El Sistema Greece (ESG) to address this with a three pronged approach: provide sustainable education for children, promote social inclusion, and change the narrative surrounding migrants. This allows them to work toward their mission, which is to seek inclusion and peace through free music education for migrant children in Greece.
Over the years, they have been able to provide over 2,500 students ages 3-26 access to music learning. Currently, they have a team of three board members, six administrators, and thirteen teaching artists. Together they work to bring music learning not only to youth in refugee camps, but to youth across Athens and beyond. This takes form by way of music theory and literacy classes, choir, orchestra, and individual lessons. Unfortunately, they cannot predict how long a child will be in a refugee camp–it could be days, it could be years–so they structure each lesson so that a child has a meaningful interaction with music no matter how long they are a part of ESG. They also cannot predict if the refugee camps will even remain open, and have learned to adapt to these kinds of changes.
For funding, ESG relies upon Friends of El Sistema Greece, outside foundations, earned income from concerts, and private donors directly to ESG. The Friends program is their US philanthropic branch used as a conduit for donations.
Learn more at El Sistema Greece
Authored by : Rose Martus (USA), Sandra Rivera (El Salvador), Natalia Bohorquez (Colombia), Emily Davis (UK)
Martus, Rivera, Bohórquez & Davis researched and collaborated with El Sistema Greece as Fellows of The 2022 Global Leaders Program
