Members of the “Landfill Harmonic Orchestra” live in extreme poverty in a slum on a landfill in Paraguay. But some of the kids are thriving as a result of resourceful garbage pickers making instruments from the stuff salvaged from the huge trash heap.
As I was saying in the last posting about learning from the poor . . .
Here’s a lesson in how resourceful they can be, because they have to be.
In a slum called Cateura that’s built on a landfill in Paraguay, a new violin would be worth more than any of the houses. The 2,500 families in this cesspool survive life there largely by digging through the garbage and recycling.
Illiteracy in the barrio is rampant, as is violence and all the usual social ills that go with poverty. The water is polluted and on rainy days the slum floods with contaminated water.
All of which makes the “Landfill Harmonic Orchestra” all the more amazing.
Check out the video and also the web site here for more about the documentary film due to be released early next year.
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