Canadian Mennonite
Volume 11, No. 21
October 29, 2007
Building skills in music, promoting peace
GUATEMALA CITY, GUATEMALA
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Note by musical note, families that attend a Mennonite music school in Guatemala’s capital city learn how to sing, read music and play an instrument. They also develop relationships with each other, a way of building peace in a city where violence and crime are common.
Through the Escuela Menonita de Música (Mennonite School of Music), Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) worker Beth Peachey and co-coordinator Isabel Garnica are helping the city’s Mennonite Church conference to provide more opportunities for the community to learn music and come together.
Years ago, at Jesús el Buen Pastor, a church where a music school session now takes place every Saturday, drive-by shootings used to occur nearly on a daily basis, according to a church elder. Although gang violence in their neighbourhood has quieted down in recent years, promoting peacemaking is still a necessity.
“The school is a good step to reach out to the Guatemalan community and to create peace by helping people to build relationships. It offers them a constructive way to use their time,” says Gilma Córdova, secretary of the Mennonite Church conference.
The Mennonite School of Music, which started in April and meets every Saturday, has more than 100 students from churches and surrounding communities. If students cannot afford the monthly fee, they may submit a letter from their pastor and attend free of charge.
The school allowed Martha Julieta Vásquez de Pérez to register all three of her children in music lessons. She said her 11-year-old, Javier, used to practise playing piano at church, but could only make noise. He wanted to take lessons so that he could worship God through his playing and perhaps even write his own music.
“The vision of the school is not only to teach music,” says Garnica. “But the experience of sharing time together is a way to respond to the violence that happens here.”
To Peachey, “singing together is something that can really bring a community together. It’s a way of connecting people to each other that’s very unique,” she says.