Do Good

This week, the Toronto Star continues to focus on the aging population and the challenges, the aging population faces and the care givers who want to help them. An article this morning mentions a east Indian scholar who says that his reason for living is to do good each day.

Recently, a Venezuelan choral scholar and director and woman who does a great deal of good, Maria Guinand http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Guinandvisited Toronto to spread her gospel of music. Guinand brings hope to children living so far below the poverty line that they do not even show up in official stats. She does it with music and her foundation, Construir Cantando based in Caracas.

She set up a choir, the Schola Cantorum and many satellite groups in the slums and hinterlands of Venezuela, Columbia, Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru. Her belief is "We are here to push them to the highest of their possibilities artistically. Full stop."

Guinand and her organizations aren't just training future musicians and teachers but are helping to raise "human beings who are certain that they can reach places they thought that could never reach. Her choirs travel the world proving that even lives can be changed and not just the lives of the choiristers but whole communities.

I hope that she will be able to continue to illuminate the lives of her choristers for many years to come and to demonstrate that having high standards and goals is not a negative.