Juan Guillermo Ocampo

Juan Guillermo Ocampo has instituted citywide music schools and a youth symphony orchestra composed of children from the poorest neighborhoods of Colombia’s most dangerous city, Medellín. Through these mechanisms and the involvement of the community and parents, the children develop discipline and new aspirations.

In the poor neighborhoods, or comunas, that crowd the periphery of Medellín, Juan Guillermo Ocampo has started schools that teach children to play classical music. The program accelerates quickly in order to hook the students and encourage disciplined follow-up. Without such an intervention, many of them would follow a path, well-worn in their communities, to violence and drug trafficking. However, their challenging musical experience offers them another source of status and exhilaration, ultimately transforming their perspective on the violence that they have known too well. In Juan Guillermo’s analysis, in fact, this awareness increases children’s inner strength and ability to reach toward more constructive goals, including, for some students, a career in music. While the music schools cannot address the children’s multiple disadvantages in one stroke, they sharpen students’ capacity to make good decisions, and they provide guidance when it matters most—before illicit activity. As Juan Guillermo is fond of saying, “Once you put a violin in the hands of a child and teach him to play, he will never pick up a gun.”

Juan Guillermo is demonstrating that culture is not only a result of social development, but also an engine that propels it. The schools give poor children access to music and training that had been previously unavailable to them. The only other well-established music program for disadvantaged children in the Andean region is in Venezuela, and, since it buses children into music centers, it does not have the same level of community impact. Juan Guillermo is constructing a new community of audiences and schools, producing tomorrow’s teachers for Medellín’s comunas and other cities.

Children who are surrounded by violent and desperate conditions with few other obvious options will most likely opt for violence as they grow up. In 1994, Medellín was labeled the most violent city in the world. It has the world’s highest murder rate: 30% of the homicides occur among young people aged 15-24. Half of the population of two million lives in 300 comunas, where youth unemployment is about 45%.

Medellín is infamous for its teenage professional killers, or sicarios. Drug traffickers woo adolescents and train them to keep watch on the neighborhoods. These young killers, an estimated 8,000, enforce rules regarding access to the streets and the operation of businesses in the neighborhood. Anyone who disobeys them is shot. Every year, the children involved in the drug trade get younger. In the early 1980s, the professional killers were mostly aged 25-40; in 2001, many were even as young as 12. Many girls in desperate conditions turn to prostitution. Juan Guillermo says that the children are starved for heroes, and their role models are limited to sicarios or drug traffickers.

Medellín’s cultural institutions have not fulfilled their potential in offering enriching activities to the neighborhoods. The city’s theater is home to a ballet company with no dancers and a symphony orchestra that was forced to close after 50 years since it lacked musicians and an audience. The city’s schools do not teach music. The arts institutions, which are in the hands of private organizations funded by the state, are failing. They do not see community social development, or the potential for developing new audiences in the comunas, as their mission, though parents thereeven those who work as professional killerswant a different future for their children.

Juan Guillermo says the drug traffickers choose well when they recruit Medellín youngsters, because of the kids’ creativity and stamina. But he reaches them first, capitalizing on the same resources through high quality music training. His schools train young individuals to hopefully become future teachers of music. Juan Guillermo is further securing their future by creating a demand for the music training amongst local communities and other strategic allies, as well as through carefully chosen, highly visible public events.

Children attend the music schools in their own neighborhoods after they complete regular classes. Juan Guillermo recruits young music teachers from top conservatories to serve as teachers and, just as importantly, as friends and role models. If a child does not attend class, the teacher goes to the home to find out why.

Juan Guillermo has determined that, in order to maintain their interest, children must quickly learn new topics. They begin by learning how to read music and sing. When ready, they receive an instrument and are expected to play a scale within the first week and, soon thereafter, the melody of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.” After six months, each child participates in the local school’s orchestra. About 500 of the most talented students are selected to play in the youth symphony orchestra. They are so committed that they tend to have rigorous rehearsal schedules even during school vacations.

The children learn discipline and excel to meet high standards. The teachers and Juan Guillermo have written a school manual with basic rules that highlight respect for one another, the instruments, and the program, values that otherwise are not prominent in the students’ normal school environment. Students are taught humility, pride in their origins, and an understanding of their role and responsibilities as musicians. These values foster character development and the ability to make independent and thoughtful decisions. The students have begun to serve as poor role models for other individuals their age. Moreover, they are respected on the street; they can “walk wherever they want” in these turf-conscious neighborhoods.

Juan Guillermo has worked with the Universidad Pontifica Bolivariana on an impact study of the schools. Among the most decisive findings are academic improvement due to participation in the music schools (the teachers monitor students’ grades), motivation toward becoming a professional, in music or otherwise, and an overwhelming sense of loyalty and commitment to the program. Furthermore, parents have become ardent supporters. When Juan Guillermo first approached 91 leaders from the comunas about starting music schools in 1994, they were skeptical of classical music because of its upper class associations. But soon enough, even the most reluctant parents were won over by their children’s positive response to the schools (which, by 2001, numbered 20 with 2000 students, including many sicarios’ children). In fact, the impact study showed that the violin is the instrument most in demand. Each school has a family association, as well as leadership and music appreciation classes for the parents. Parents have even acted to protect their schools. For example, when one of Juan Guillermo’s schools (based in a religious school) in one of the most violent comunas nearly closed because of financial difficulties, parents arrived at his doorstep with a pile of letters and one of the nuns, insisting that he keep the school open. The nuns told him, “You can’t take the school away from this community. You have done more good for these young people with your music than we have with our religion.” Again, in 1999 after city government officials who had committed US$1,000,000 to the program withdrew the funds, parents investigated the money’s reallocation and partially succeeded in reinstating the city’s support.

The schools’ resources come from government, businesses, and international organizations (such as UNICEF). Businesses that did not want to be associated with children from the comunas are now beginning to appreciate the advertising that comes with their support. Juan Guillermo also founded the Amadeus Musical Foundation in 1999 to both raise funds and guarantee that all agreements are upheld. For example, the Foundation played an active role in ensuring that, when the Medellín mayor’s office intended to run the schools itself instead of investing in music education as it had promised, the schools were kept apolitical; Juan Guillermo insists that schools are much more successful when they are kept out of political frays.

A few key allies have helped meet the school’s challenge of acquiring instruments and encouraging the city’s support. In addition to his donations, Spanish music-business leader Ramón Jimenez offered the city such a discount that the city agreed to purchase a large supply of instruments from him. In late 1998, the orchestra was asked to play for the opening of the Museum of Antioquia (Medellín’s state) and its honored guest, the famous Medellín-born painter Botero. He recounted emotionally that the children were even more impressive than the museum; he has repeatedly donated a significant number of instruments to the schools. Since the Botero opening, the museum has never received any outside public figure without thee presence of the orchestra.

The orchestra’s increasing fame serves as an important counterbalance to Medellín’s otherwise unsavory reputation, and a model of hope throughout the nation and region. The city symphony organization has invited the youth symphony to play (with no charge to the parents), while orchestra members have been invited to give a performance in Caracas, Venezuela.

Juan Guillermo plans to create music schools in each of the city’s 300 comunas and orchestras in each of Medellín’s six zones, which will feed a conservatory to train professional musicians and future teachers. His plan is to reach 10,000 young people in the next three years—and 50,000 in the next ten years—and make Medellín an internationally-recognized “City of Peace and Music.” Juan Guillermo says the children represent “all of Colombia” and has asked the Minister of Culture for backing. He also envisions the youth musicians connecting with other communities in Colombia, particularly in two other areas where violence is a major threat: Magdalena Medio and Urabá; the governor of Urabá has already shown interest.

Juan Guillermo grew up in a relatively poor household in Medellín with eight siblings. Since his father died when he was two years old, his mother worked hard to support the family and acted as a strong role model. Still, she was unable to afford to buy her young son a violin, despite her strong desire to fulfill his dream. Juan Guillermo clearly understood poverty and segregation from a society that values greatly titles and last names.

In 1988, Juan Guillermo came home to Medellín after working in New York to help his family. He found that cultural institutions were not only failing but also were disconnected from the life of the poor communities. A long-time music lover and believer in music’s ability to inspire, he started a music library and a small instrument store with the goal of using his profits to give scholarships to poor children and support the symphony orchestra. He also taught music appreciation classes in the comunas. At Christmas in 1990, he brought together two rival communities to simply make music together. The concert was a success, with 10,000 people in attendance, including professional killers. The experience galvanized him to give more to the communities.

Juan Guillermo has given up everything for his work, including his house. His personal relationships have suffered as a result, although one of his daughters is a cello student at one of the music schools. When asked what she wants to do with her life, she says she wants to do what he does—work with music and children.