Venezuela!

We will soon be heading to Venezuela for our residency there and are all very excited about our upcoming trip.

While in Venezuela we will get to visit and work in many different nucleos around the country. We are all equipped with very cool flip cams which we will be taking with us on our trip in order to document as much as possible.  Hopefully by the time we return I will have figured out how to upload or embed a video on my blog and share some footage with you.

I am sure some of you are curious as to what the Fellows have been up to these past few weeks. Well, we've been on our U.S. internships and spring break all the while working diligently on future El Sistema projects. We are all still in the process of figuring out what's next. June is fast approaching and some of us are lucky enough to have wonderful choices for where we would like to be come July, August, or even September. It is an exciting time for all of us, but it is also a time when most of us are being very systematic as we look at future partnerships and organizations we may be thinking of joining. Rest assured that come June you will all know where we will be. I myself plan on keeping my blog even post Fellowship.

I am looking forward to putting into practice everything I've learned during the Fellowship and hope to continue to be a resource for anyone who may have questions about El Sistema, or is contemplating starting an El Sistema nucleo.  A new class of Abreu Fellows should be getting acceptance letters any day now and as my class graduates and goes out into the field to achieve greatness, our network grows stronger.

As soon as I have concrete plans to share with you about where I will be next year and what my part will be in the greater El Sistema network I will share with you. I am still trying to figure it out. What I can say is that wherever I am, I will keep sharing 'notes' with all of you.

YOFES

As part of our program at NEC this year all 10 Abreu Fellows have been placed in Community Placements throughout Greater Boston. These community placements started way back in October and for most of us are still ongoing. Here is a short list of some of the organizations we have been working with this year:

Boston City Singers
Boston Quartet
Zumix
CLCS (Conservatory Lab Charter School)

 I was very fortunate to be matched with an amazing and inspiring organization: YOUTH AND FAMILY ENRICHEMENT SERVICES, INC. (YOFES).


YOFES is located in Hyde Park which is an area south of Boston, past Jamaica Plain and past Roslindale. It takes me over an hour to get there each time I go (I have to take two metro trains and a bus). But when I go, I enter a world where mission and vision mean something. The  mission of YoFES is "to build strong families that can raise healthy children, even in the face of poverty, social inequity, and cultural transition". They do this by helping inner-city youth meet today's health, education, and career challenges; by engaging youth as leaders; and by helping parents understand, guide, and support youth.

You may wonder how this mission aligns with our music education leadership program as Abreu Fellows? Well, along with the youth health careers program, parenting education, and many other public health related programs, YoFES offers a children's music program!

YoFES's music program is called OAMEC ( Open Access to Music Education for Children) and they are dedicated to "engaging at risk youth into the world of music, and providing students a positive outlet to expressing themselves.  I invite you to visit their website: http://yofes.org/oamec

YoFES is a wonderful place where children can come after school and on weekends (they run Saturday AND Sunday!). This is a place where "every child is an asset". I feel very privileged to have gotten to know the kids and staff of YoFES.
 I want to share with you an opportunity to help support this wonderful place. They are currently running an instrument drive for the music program so if you have an instrument you would like to donate please contact them or just stop by anytime!

YoFES
1234 Hyde Park Ave. Suite 104
617-364-0370
617-447-6522

Back in a week!

My extended absence from blogging will be ending soon. Please check back in a week for new blog post with pictures!