Specifications:
- Province: Rosa Santaeugenia Province | 2025–2026
- Sector: Education
- Implemented by: Dominican Sisters of the Annunciation
Belo Horizonte, the capital of the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, is a metropolitan city with more than 2.5 million inhabitants. Despite being one of the country’s most developed urban centers, it faces significant social inequalities, as well as high rates of youth violence and unemployment, particularly in its peripheral neighborhoods.
One of these neighborhoods is Aarão Reis, home to the Sr. Rosa Font Fuster School of Music.
This community faces high levels of social vulnerability. A large portion of the population lives in precarious conditions, with limited access to quality education, formal employment, and basic services. Structural poverty, rooted in longstanding social and economic inequalities, disproportionately affects children, adolescents, and young adults, exposing many of them to violence, drug use, and school dropout.
According to data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), nearly 34% of young people between the ages of 15 and 29 in Brazil live in poverty, and more than 40% of families in urban peripheral communities lack access to cultural or sports activities.
The project
“Exchange a weapon for a flute” is an initiative that has, for many years, provided free music education to children and adolescents from vulnerable communities in Belo Horizonte. It offers a creative, educational, and preventive alternative to environments marked by violence and social exclusion.
The cultural scholarship program consists of 15 annual scholarships for students living in vulnerable situations, enabling them to participate free of charge in music lessons and orchestra rehearsals. The scholarships contribute to covering part of the school’s operating costs, including educational materials, facility maintenance, and teachers’ salaries.
Music is used as an educational tool to promote self-esteem, discipline, teamwork, respect, and hope. As the project team often says: “If a child holds a flute in their hands, they will not hold a weapon.”
The School does not receive government funding. Although it currently benefits from the support of a private company, those contributions are dedicated exclusively to the construction of the new school building. Donations and small voluntary contributions from some families are not sufficient to sustain the scholarship program.
General objective:
To contribute to the social inclusion and holistic development of children and adolescents from vulnerable communities through free music education.
- Provide access to music education for 15 vulnerable students over a 12-month period.
- Promote values such as coexistence, discipline, respect, and cooperation through musical practice.
- Strengthen family relationships through community activities and musical performances.
- Prevent risk situations—including school dropout, violence, and substance abuse—through access to transformative cultural education.
Beneficiaries:
- 15 children, adolescents, and young adults between the ages of 6 and 23, living in vulnerable neighborhoods of Belo Horizonte, who will receive full scholarships for their musical education.
- Students’ families (approximately 60 people) actively involved in the educational process.
- The wider school and community environment surrounding the participants.
Total project budget: €2,903.00