2007 Calendar

In 2003, Rhythm in the Barrios started in the school “Quinta Los Chavalos,” with a group of 15 kids who received piano classes once a week. Little by little, the number of children interested in music classes grew. Thanks to donations of other instruments like flutes and guitars, we brought our courses to more schools.

For the first couple of years, I gave almost all of the classes myself, although I could sometimes count on the help of some other volunteers. Although their contributions were always very valuable, they usually could not stay in Granada for very long due to various reasons, and so our work lacked continuity.

In order to bring lasting music classes to more schools, we decided it would be better to work with local musicians, rather than international volunteers who come and go. But there was a problem: we had to pay the Nicaraguan teachers, and we had no money for them.

So we came up with the idea of making a calendar to raise money.

Sales of the 2007 calendar were a complete success. We sold more than 600 of them, earning close to $6000!! With the money, besides buying instruments and other materials for classes, we were able to hire five local teachers: two pianists, one flautist, one guitarist, and a trumpet player. All of them were very young, knew how to play an instrument, and after they received training, they started to give music lessons.

With their help, more than twice as many kids are getting music lessons in 2007 than were in 2006. That’s more than 400 students in seven different schools.

In other words, the calendar was a triple success. First, it allowed us to give exciting jobs to five young Nicaraguans. Second, we are now bringing quality music lessons to more schools. Third, the calendars, which we sent all over the world, have given us lots of publicity. That has lead to more donations and volunteers, who, while we prefer the base of our team to be made of locals, are still more than welcome!

For all of this, we thank all of you who bought a calendar, or helped to sell them. We would especially like to thank the non-profit organization MSAC (Music Schools Association of Catalonia) for their invaluable collaboration. With a huge effort, MSAC purchased 75 calendars to give to all of its associated schools, and this brought us notable financial help and lots of publicity.

We hope we can continue to count on everyone’s support in the future.