The Landfill Harmonic Project – Eureka Productions

With so many
to deal with, it isn’t always easy being a citizen of the planet’s greatest developed nation. Some people can’t be bothered clearing last week’s lunch trash off their desk. Some people still toss cigarettes and food trash onto the 405. Some people complain about having public dump sites only a few miles away.
In Cateura, Paraguay, the town is built on top of a landfill.
Like the protagonists in Kurosawa’s 1970 film, «Dodeska-​den,» the citizens of Cateura may be poor but their lives are nonetheless vibrant and full. The trash that comes to their third world living environment from the larger cities around them have long since become a source of livelihood for many, including local luthier and humble garbage picker, Nicholas «Cola» Gomez, and musician, Favio Chavez. Recycling bits and pieces from the refuse, Cola and Favio ingeniously replicate working orchestral instruments for the local children to use to learn and play music.
Favio and his growing number of students have also formed «The Recycled Orchestra,» whose real-​life characters and stories became the inspiration for the Landfill Harmonic, a pending movie by film producers Alejandra Nash and Juliana Penaranda-​Loftus. Thanks to the exposure from their initial trailer released in December that went viral, millions of people are now aware of the impoverished conditions in Cateura, and that despite the trash and the odds, Cola and Favio are making beautiful instruments, and the children they make the instruments for are making beautiful music.
After exchanging a short series of emails to connect with enthusiastic Chris from California and Gabrielle from Bolivia to find out more about the intriguing Landfill Harmonic, I made a pledge to help fund their Kickstarter project and Alejandra and Juliana’s movie that is currently still in mid-​production. It’s a small thing for me to do, perhaps the cost of a meal or two. Concert tickets, music lessons and instruments already cost prohibitive amounts here in the U.S. How is someone from a place like Cateura’s slums supposed to buy an instrument that typically costs more than the very home they live in?
What started from garbage became an orchestra, a project, eventually a movie, and potentially a worldwide movement that hopes to help similarly underserved communities give their children the tools and the means to hope and dream big. It’s a good start when people are able to do something positive that affects change in a small area, and it is even better if other people can learn from the change and share, apply and amplify the lessons they’ve learned to affect change all over the world.
In our day-​to-​day lives, it can sometimes feel like there’s nothing we can really do to help or to change things in any meaningful way. There’s so much wrong out there, i.e.
. It is inspiring and exciting, therefore, to see the people behind The Landfill Harmonic Project and The Recycled Orchestra gear up to be in a position where they can truly help and make a real impact, if given the chance, and I’m happy to be a part of that. Because I want to see it happen, and this is the kind of world I want to live in.
For more information about The Landfill Harmonic Project, and to find out how you can help Alejandra, Juliana, Chris, Gabrielle, Favio, Cola, and the kids from The Recycled Orchestra, please visit
.