Last Friday, I was at a 2011 BBC Proms highlight. The Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra is the flagship of Venezuela’s El Sistema, where 250,000 children and young people participate in orchestral music, over three quarters of whom live below the poverty line. Just 24 hours later a riot was taking hold in Tottenham. As disorder spread through English cities over the next few nights, it was hard not to contrast the life enhancing work of one set of young people, with the destructive power of another. Our Chief Executive, Penny Young focuses on some basic premises of the London Riots.
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Tags:
education, Every Child a Reader, family interventions, London riots, National Citizen Service, volunteering