The Youth Lutherie & Musical Instrument Centre Project
An important component of the provision of instruments for the children is a mechanism to support them with new instruments and also to repair those which need to be repaired through continuous use. This can be accommodated with an additional benefit, in offering opportunities for youth skill development and employment:
- A trainee workshop organisation will be founded where 'apprentices' or unemployed youth will be trained in simple repairs for stringed instruments, the more complex areas of repairs of broken wooden instruments, and the preparation of raw wood instruments brought into Australia for finishing and varnishing.
- This facility could be attached to a regional TAFE and thus become an education centre of excellence, and will be established to prepare instruments for the children of Sistema string programmes; it will be set up as a 'cottage industry' to train unemployed young people in basic luthery and to inspire them to take up this craft. In time this will become a manufacturing centre creating instruments from scratch.
- Funding will come from government, TAFE education funding and unemployment relief programmes. Sponsorship from corporate enterprise will also be sought.
- A central repository for secondhand and new instruments will have to be established. Regional storage facilities will be created to provide the instruments for each Sistema requirement across Australia.
“Music has to be recognized as an…agent of social development in the highest sense, because it transmits the highest values – solidarity, harmony, mutual compassion. And it has the ability to unite an entire community and to express sublime feelings.”__Jose Antonio Abreu
