The Recycled Orchestra of Cateura

“Cateura, Paraguay is a small city that has grown atop a massive dump.  It is regarded as one of the poorest slums in Latin America, a village where people live among a sea of garbage.  Incredibly, the landfill itself is the primary form of subsistence for many residents, who pick through waste for items that can be used or sold.  Prospects for most of the children born in Cateura is bleak as gangs and drugs await many of them.  But then one day, something amazing happened.

A garbage picker named Nicolás Gómez (known as “Cola”) found a piece of trash that resembled a violin and brought it to musician Favio Chávez.  Using other objects collected from the dump, the pair constructed a functional violin in a place where a real violin is worth more a house.  Using items gleaned completely from the dump, the pair then built a cello, a flute, a drum, and suddenly had a wild idea: could a children’s orchestra be born in one of the most depressed areas in the world?  As you can guess, the answer was yes.”

- Colossal (Online): April 2013

The Recycled Orchestra of Cateura gave people a purpose, a hope for a better future.  It taught children about music and inflamed a passion in them that they didn’t know they had.  It became an international success, playing all over the world and touring with some of the biggest bands and orchestras from every nation.  What started out as a hair-brained idea, turned into one of the most innovative ideas to ever revolutionize the music industry.  It paired cast-off garbage with cast-off children to form something beautiful.  It also inspired a documentary called “Landfill Harmonic,” which was released in 2015.

“There were a lot of drugs, alcohol, violence, child labor – a lot of situations that you wouldn’t think are favorable for kids to learn values.  However, they have a spot in the orchestra.

“Like an island within the community, a place where they can develop these values.

“We’ve seen cases where parents with addiction problems have quit taking drugs to go to their kid’s concerts.  And in a lot cases, the parents have gone back to finish school because their kids are being seen all over and they think, ‘They are going forward.  I want to, as well.’

“They are not only changing their lives but the lives of their families and their community.”

- Favio Chavez, Orchestra Director