Yesterday, the National Youth Orchestra and the Choir of Belize accepted a donation from the international non-profit organization, MusAid.
MusAid, an organization that was founded in 2006, has been in the country assessing the Orchestra’s musical needs, and after consultation, the instruments were delivered.
MusAid’s founder presented a few of the instruments to NICH’s Music Director at the Maud Williams High School, and 7News stopped in. We spoke with the organization’s founder about the donation:
Kevin Schaffter - Founder, MusAid
"Part of our organization's - the first step in helping a country is that we visit, we see what kind of needs the schools have, and after that, we form a long-term relationship where we supply the instruments that they lack, and we bring teachers that can help with different, various instruments that they may not have teachers in Belize for. So, for example, in Belize, the lack is in lower strings, chello and base, and so, we hope in the future to bring chello and base teachers to help."
Colville Young Jr. - Music Director, NICH
"They're exactly what we would have liked, what the doctor ordered, in other words, what we are doing, we're trying to get young people to focus on acquiring skill. We're trying to get young people to devote extra, surplus activity into getting to learn to play an instrument."
Kevin Schaffter
"So far, the response have been great. We really think that music has the potential to inspire youths to reach full potential, apart from just the joy of playing classical music, or music in general. We feel that it has the potential to really inspire dedication, focus, commitment, and they can apply those skills to their regular school work. So, they learn music, but they also improve in many different skills that they can apply to school or to jobs they may have in the future."
Colville Young Jr.
"What we have in Belize is people have an interest for this sort of thing, there has not really been much opportunity for them to develop the skills of whatever they want to do. So, this is a great and swell opportunity for us to get this going in terms of us forming an environment whereby anybody, who has that kind of a skill or interest, can actually develop their talents."
MusAid has committed to bringing music teachers to Belize in the areas most needed to assist the National Youth Orchestra.
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