NEOJIBA

The youth orchestra of the Brazilian program NEOJIBA has just returned from its 10th international tour, having visited Frankfurt, Germany, and four cities in China.

When trying to renew an initiative that has existed for almost a decade, our great challenge is to find that precise balance between valuing tradition and proposing something new. At NEOJIBA State Nuclei for Youth and Children’s Orchestras of Bahia, this balance is fundamental to our continuous search for improvement—praising what already works, recognizing what can be improved, and having the tranquility to suggest something innovative without losing the essence of an idea.

It was in this spirit that in 2023, on a sunny afternoon during Bahia’s “eternal summer,” we began to redesign PROCEC, our collective teacher training program.

“Your alumni will become your best assets for your mission.” That’s what social entrepreneurs from Changemaker Fellowships told AIM’s leadership when we began in 2018. So far, we agree. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has deeply affected many economic sectors across the world—none more so than the cultural and creative industries. Cultural heritage infrastructures, museums, libraries, galleries, cinemas, and arts education institutions have been locked down. Shows, exhibitions, fairs, cultural tourism, and international exchange opportunities for artists have been canceled. Millions of artists have lost their jobs, and people everywhere have lost access to cultural life. Less visible but equally important are the millions more whose jobs depend on the work of artists.

NEOJIBA is a public El Sistema-inspired program in Brazil, founded by Ricardo Castro in 2007 and implemented by the State of Bahia through the Secretariat of Justice, Human Rights, and Social Development (Secretaria de Justiça, Direitos Humanos e Desenvolvimento Social). One of our most critical components is the Social Development Sector, which is composed of eight professionals with educational backgrounds in social work and psychology. These professionals work daily to ameliorate socioeconomic and educational inequalities that confront many of our students, and to provide full access to social rights. They also provide individual and/or group psychosocial appointments for students and their families. Through attentive and qualified listening, our professionals enable families to work through social circumstances and establish intervention strategies. These unfold in a set of actions, tailored to each individual or family, that help participants work through their specific issues.

NEOJIBA in Brazil honored their 2018 accomplishments with a week-long Facebook campaign called #RetrospectivaNEOJIBA (NEOJIBA Retrospective). The program posted about the most memorable moments that marked 2018, from benefit concerts and trips to features of new projects. One such post: