The Landfillharmonic

While working as an ecological technician at the Cateura Landfill, the largest garbage dump of Paraguay’s capital Asunción, Favio Chávez got to know and befriended some of the 2,500 impoverished families who lived at the garbage dump working as recyclers. Witnessing the rampant illiteracy, extreme poverty, pollution and surrounding culture of drugs and gangs, Chávez became acutely aware that the children needed something positive in their lives – something to keep them out of the landfill and striving for something more. Favio, having previously been a music teacher, decided to share his love of music with the children, and he began teaching music lessons using the handful of personal instruments he owned. He quickly realized there weren’t enough instruments for all the eager students wanting to learn. With help from one of the trash pickers, he started experimenting with making instruments with the given resources. Using scraps of dirty oilcans, jars, wood, forks and other junk in the Cateura landfill, the instruments began to take shape and become finely tuned musical instruments - violins, flutes, cellos, drums…all made from trash. From this ingenuity, the “Recycled Orchestra” was formed with the local children as its members learning and performing Bach, Mozart and Beethoven (read on Go Campaign)
-- read on People
-- watch trailer of Landfillharmonic