Youth Orchestra Offers Concert in Haiti with OAS Support
PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti – The École de Musique Saint Trinité orchestra of Haiti, together with Viva Río and with the support of the Organization of American States (OAS), offered a classical music concert in the city of Port-au-Prince on Friday, Feb. 5.
The event was not only an opportunity to bring together an important number of Haitians looking to normalize their lives after the earthquake that devastated the country last January 12, but also helped the OAS to locate and regroup children and students who have been involved in this OAS music program of social inclusion, with those with whom they had not been in touch with after the earthquake.
The concert, which took place at the Cabo in Kay Nou (“our home”), a community center of Viva Río which currently serves as a temporary refuge, was performed by musicians from the École de Musique Saint Trinité, who are also part of the country’s main symphonic orchestra, and by the school’s children’s choir known as Les Petits Chanteurs. In the concert they used musical instruments that were recovered under the debris of the destroyed school from the effects of the earthquake.
On November 1 of last year the Special Multilateral Fund of the Inter-American Council for Integral Development (FEMCIDI), of the OAS launched the Program for Youth at Risk. When the earthquake hit the Caribbean country, this initiative had recruited more than 80 youth at social risk and offered daily musical instructions at the École de Musique Saint Trinité.