Music and recycling, a project full of great value

Buena Música

· 14 Feb 2022

Music and recycling, a project full of great value

#recycling The social project Music of Recycling was born in 2014 as a way to help children at risk of social exclusion.

Music is a very important form of expression. In fact, communication began with the sounds that hominids produced with the vibrations of their vocal cords. has numerous benefits in children such as the following:

1. Attention. Listening to music or performing it requires attention, so children learn to focus and maintain focus thanks to music.

2. Memory. Music also stimulates memory in several ways. On the one hand, to interpret it, it is necessary to learn and remember. On the other hand, a song, for example, can bring back memories of the past.

3. Learning. With music, new connections are created between neurons, so the brain develops and learning is promoted.

4. emotion. The melody of each piece of music is capable of generating in us emotions such as joy, calm, grief or anger. The expression of emotions and the understanding of them are essential for children to develop their emotional intelligence.

What is this project about?

The Recycling Music Orchestra was created thanks to the Cateura Orchestra of Recycled Instruments, which is made up of children and adolescents with scarce resources and who live in a community that is located near the Cateura de Asunción landfill in Paraguay. The instruments used by the orchestra are made from waste from the landfill.

In 2014, Ecoembes helped the orchestra perform for the first time in Spain. Since that year, boys and girls have attended classes on string, wind and percussion instruments every week. In classes they are taught both how to make their own instruments and how to perform music.

Therefore, the project focuses on providing music training to young people at risk of social exclusion.

The conductor of the orchestra, Víctor Gil, comments that when they started with the project, they visited a mother-and-child residence and met with the director to tell her about the project.

After seeing the facilities, the director asked them only one thing: “The day you don't come for whatever reason, let me know to inform the boys. If you don't let us know one day, we'll wait the next and if you're not there the next we won't allow you to enter this center anymore, because all these kids have been abandoned too many times, they've failed them too much to go through the same thing again”

With the Music of Recycling project, children learn such important things as:

Values: Playing an instrument in an orchestra means that children learn such important values as solidarity, equality, or respect.

Teamwork: The coordination involved in playing an instrument in an orchestra promotes the learning of teamwork. Working as a team is essential to helping others, striving for a common goal, learning to delegate tasks, taking responsibility and creating a sense of belonging.

Music: Of course, with the Music of Recycling project, you learn music and you also learn to make musical instruments with recycled materials.

Sustainability: The use of recycled materials from the Cateura landfill helps children understand the importance of recycling to protect the environment.

Musical instruments made from recyclable material:

Maracas: To make them you will need the cardboard inside the rolls of toilet paper, chickpeas or coffee beans, large plastic caps and colored markers. You simply have to place the lids on the ends, stick them with tape and, before closing the second lid, put the chickpeas or coffee beans. Once this is done, you can decorate each maraca with colored markers.

Drum: The packaging of empty jars of some potatoes, for example, can be used to make a drum. Gather six containers with the lids, attach them with adhesive tape and with two wooden sticks you can play the drum.

Trumpet: To make it you will need 25 centimeters of hose, a funnel, glue and adhesive tape. Make a small cut at one end of the hose to insert the funnel and glue it. Cover it with tape so that it does not move or peel off. Bend the hose to make it like a circle and tie it with the tape by crushing it. You already have your trumpet to enjoy a homemade instrument.