Fellow Cuso International volunteer Karen Prentice recently accompanied the National Youth Orchestra of Jamaica on a “Dream Tour” of Canada. Karen works as the Communications Advisor for NYOJ and spent a life-changing week with these youth from inner-city communities who have spent the past while learning how to play classical instruments. I have seen them play a concert and it was so moving. Please read Karen’s account here of the trip.
It was a dream: a pipe dream some may have thought… a far off mirage that wasn’t in my ‘work plan’ I thought, but a dream none the less: to get twenty-five at-risk youth from Kingston, Jamaica to Canada in order to perform at Jamaica Independence Day Celebrations and tour three cities in two provinces to sell out crowds and well…sound good.*
[*Side Note: I don’t volunteer for an auditioned orchestra in a grand amphitheater: the NYOJ is a non-profit organization that accepts anyone who wants to join. It’s a crime-prevention program engaged in empowering Jamaican youth from vulnerable social groups through free classical music training at schools throughout Kingston and Spanish town… so the sound good part was still very much up in the air.]
Stressful, frustrating and exhausting are a few of the adjectives one could have used for the lead up as well as the execution…
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Jamaican Journal 