Children, adolescents, and young people who are part of the Arts for Peace Program (PAPP) will receive musical instruments, with which the Ministry of Culture, Arts, and Knowledge and the Industrial University of Santander (UIS) aim to sow melodies and songs, train artists, but above all, forge better human beings with music as one of the best tools to achieve this.
In the departments of Boyacá, Cesar, Norte de Santander, and Santander, where the UIS implements the PAPP, musical instruments will be distributed to 97 schools, benefiting some 20,000 students. Among the instruments to be delivered are: Andean sets (guitars, tiples, bandolas, requintos, esterillas, among others), string orchestra sets (violins, violas, cellos, double basses), urban music sets (electric guitars, basses, pianos, amplifiers), small band and symphonic sets (clarinets, flutes, saxophones, trumpets, among others), musical initiation/exploration sets, marching band sets (snare drums, cymbals, lyres), vallenato ensemble sets (accordions, boxes, guacharacas), and whistle and drum ensemble sets (tambor alegre, llamador, tambora, guache).
In the department of Boyacá, the instruments will be played in 21 schools; in Cesar, in 14; in Norte de Santander, in 40; and in Santander, in 22, with an investment by the Ministry of Culture exceeding $6.65 billion. Just as the equipment will reach 97 schools in these four departments, the same will happen in the rest of the country.
“This is a historic investment for the country. All the instruments that have arrived at the targeted schools and those that are yet to arrive are beginning to be used by students in the educational activities offered by music teachers, who are also part of Arts for Peace,” said the regional director of PAPP-UIS, Angélica Mora Dionisio.
The principal of the Nuestra Señora de la Paz School in San Vicente de Chucurí, Santander, Pedro Elías Grass Aparicio, said that receiving the instruments “fills the entire educational community with joy, but above all the children.”
Danna Michelle Campos Vera, a student at Nuestra Señora de la Paz School in San Vicente de Chucurí who plays the clarinet, said that the donation was a “very nice gift for me and my classmates, because it can help us improve as musicians, bring us closer together, and the better the quality of the instruments, the better the sound will be.”
For his part, Duatukey Torres, a PAPP-UIS artist in Pueblo Bello, Cesar, who belongs to the Arhuaco indigenous people of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, said that the delivery of the instruments “was a very good thing, because it is the first time we have seen these donations. I would have liked to learn about vallenato, and this equipment we have received is very good and will allow us to take our first steps in this music,” said the artist, who teaches at the Simunurwa Indigenous Educational Center, which received a set of vallenato instruments, guitars, and other instruments.
In order for schools to receive equipment, they had to be public, have artistic training programs or be part of the Arts for Peace Program, and have a music teacher to make use of the equipment, ensure the continuity of the process, and use the instruments properly.
“This demonstrates the commitment of the Ministry of Culture and the UIS to the territories. The Ministry, with this historic investment in culture, and
the UIS, with the implementation of Arts for Peace in remote areas where music reaches to nurture and enrich culture, identity, and traditions, train artists, and contribute to the construction of a peaceful society,” concluded the director of PAPP-UIS, Angélica Mora Dionisio.
