News Release

FREDERICTON (GNB) – The provincial government is supporting Sistema New Brunswick’s plans to expand their free after-school music program to Edmundston.

“Our government is proud to play a role in helping Sistema New Brunswick expand its program to other communities around the province,” said Post-Secondary Education, Training and Labour Minister Francine Landry. “It is a proven program, designed to inspire children and youth to achieve their full potential and to acquire the values they need to grow and to have a positive impact on society.”

Landry spoke on behalf of Health Minister Victor Boudreau, who is also minister responsible for the Regional Development Corporation.

El Sistema started with 11 kids in a parking garage in Venezuela and is now a global movement. In 2009, the New Brunswick Youth Orchestra partnered with El Sistema, in Venezuela, completed a fact-finding tour of the South American country, completed a one-year prototype program in New Brunswick and adopted a further plan to expand and replicate the program throughout the province. Sistema New Brunswick is now a recognized leader in Canada, and internationally, and was honored in March with the Prime Minister’s Award for Social Innovation.

“What we have learned in New Brunswick is that talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not,” said Landry. “And that is what we are providing kids through Sistema New Brunswick. Our goal now is to make sure it is available to even more children.”

Sistema currently provides its three-hour per day program to almost 600 children in Moncton, Saint John, Richibucto and the Tobique First Nation. In September, the program will be available in Edmundston at three schools: École Notre-Dame and Carrefour de la Jeunesse in the Francophone North School District and St. Mary’s Academy in the Anglophone West School District.

“In New Brunswick, hundreds of kids as young as six years old are playing in orchestras and leaning that the impossible is more than possible. Even more, in the beauty of music lays a longer-lasting legacy,” said Ken MacLeod, CEO of the orchestra and founder of Sistema New Brunswick. “Kids are learning focus and discipline, respect, and teamwork; essential values for an orchestra to succeed but even more, to have a successful life.”

“They gain confidence and self-esteem,” said MacLeod. “And they are filled with the joy, pride and hope that come from achievement, where anything is possible. Who would not want that for even more children?”