Juan Carlos Marron is among a small group of young disabled Venezuelans who are finding hope for future independence in a program that teaches them how to repair violins and other musical instruments.
Marron has battled depression since he was left a paraplegic 12 years ago after being caught in the crossfire of the kind of neighborhood shootout so common in Venezuela, one of the world’s most violent countries.
However, eight months ago, the 27-year-old began attending a workshop run by Venezuela’s internationally renowned National System of Youth and Children’s Orchestras, known as El Sistema, in partnership with the Venezuelan Foundation for the Cure of Paralysis.
To get to the program three times a week, Marron depends on friends or family members to carry him piggyback style up and down the steep stairs that lead to his home in a poor neighborhood.
However, once at the workshop, he uses his muscled arms to build tools for instrument repair.
“This has helped me keep my mind busy,” he said.
Marron is among nine young people with motor disabilities — many who lost their mobility in the South American country’s pervasive violence — who attend the Caracas workshop. Teachers improvise to accommodate each person’s physical limitations with special tables and tools.
Organizers say it is the first program of its kind in the world, and visitors from Japan, Sweden, France and other countries have expressed interest in replicating the project in their countries.
The program aims to prepare the young people from humble backgrounds for careers building and repairing musical instruments. One former student now works in Chile as a luthier, someone who makes stringed instruments.
However, the benefits are much more immediate for students such as 24-year-old Brayan Utreras, who sat in his wheelchair filing a piece of wood into a violin bow.
Utreras said he lost hope six years ago when thugs trying to steal his motorcycle shot him in the back and he lost movement in most of his body.
“This workshop has given meaning to my life,” he said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in