Sigma Alpha Iota

People-to-people Continuing Our Legacy, Expanding Our Influence By Dr. Liana Valente, People-to-People Director F or almost 50 years, the SAI People-toPeople Project (P2P) has been assisting musicians and music teachers to make a difference in the lives of children and adults around the globe. Thanks to the generosity of fraternity chapters, individual members, and friends of Sigma Alpha Iota, the Project now offers continuing assistance to organizations and musicians working in Ecuador, Tanzania, Nigeria, Belize, and Zambia, and provides much needed materials and support to four different organizations in Haiti. The project has also created new relationships with organizations in Cuba and India. The long history of the People-to-People Project also includes helping our colleagues in the United States after disasters that destroyed schools and churches, damaged instruments, and resulted in the loss of important music libraries. During the past year, the Project has been able to help our colleagues at home and abroad in profound ways. To all who have donated time, material, and financial support, you are most sincerely thanked! Above, from left, Mauricio Jimenez, SAI National Arts Associate Albert Hunt, and Rommy Miller with materials supplied by P2P and sent to Ecuador. At right, Bob Lelli and Pontchartrain Alumnae Chapter member Lauren Erickson at the Canton, MI Evola Music store. ECUADOR The People-to-People Project began working in 2011 with Dr. Albert Hunt, SAI National Arts Associate and International Coordinator of Sinfonía por la Vida (Symphony for Life). The program serves over 700 hundred students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds ranging in age from 6 to 18 in the cities of Quito, Guayaquil, and Esmeraldas, and is coordinated by the Symphonic Youth Orchestra Foundation of Ecuador (Fundación Orquesta Sinfónica Juvenil del Ecuador), created in 1994. The students take academic classes in the mornings and attend music schools in the afternoons where they participate in youth and children's orchestras. To date the project has supplied orchestral and chamber music scores, strings, rosin, wind instruments, a ¼ size cello donated by SAI chapters and members, as well as new string instruments purchased from Evola Music in Michigan. Cange. In 2011, the project began assisting two additional organizations in Haiti: Ebenezer Glenn Orphanage in Dessalines and Sister Cities Essex-Haiti. Ebenezer Glenn Orphanage, founded by Don and Doris Peavey, received instruments and music education materials donated by chapters and sisters from around the country. Thanks to the assistance of the logistics manager of Bright Hope, this shipment of music education books, guitars, flutes, clarinets, drums, and an alto sax arrived safely in Dessalines. The materials are being used in the new music program created at the orphanage school. HAITI Sister Cities Essex (Deschapelles, Haiti) Through the SAI Haiti Redevelopment Fund, the People-to-People Project continues to offer material assistance to Holy Trinity School in Port-au-Prince and the Fanfare Band in The mission of Sister Cities Essex-Haiti (SCEH) is to build a mutual, long-term, sustainable relationship between the people of Essex, Connecticut, and the people of Deschapelles, the Hospital Albert Schweitzer located in Deschapelles, and their extended communities. Sister Cities Essex-Haiti enables community members to learn, work and solve problems together through an exchange of educational, cultural, professional, municipal, business, and technical initiatives and projects. PEOPLE continued on page 6 sai-national.org SPRING 2012 PAN PIPES 5

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