El Sistema is a community-funded social action music programme that was founded in Venezuela in1975 by founder Maestro Jose Antonio Abreu.
El Sistema particularly looks to offer opportunities for disadvantaged and at-risk young people, and is operational in local communities around the globe, enhancing the formative education of over 700,000 young students.
In 2022 the ISO, together with El Sistema Aeolian in London ON and the Trillium Foundation, started El Sistema in Lambton County with a core program dedicated to our First Nation communities. Since then we have sent instructors for classes at Bkejwanong School on Walpole Island, the Aamjiwanaang Community Centre and the Ojibwe class at Lansdowne Public School, and we will begin the program this spring at Hillside School in the Kettle/Stony Point Nation.
Making the program available to the wider community, we have also started El Sistema Saturday morning classes downtown at the ISObar, 170 Christina St North.
