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Santos, 16, is a violinist in an orchestra made up of young
musicians from the sprawling Mare "favela", home to more than
140,000 people, where violent police raids and clashes between
drug gangs are commonplace.
"If it wasn't for the orchestra, which certainly saved a lot of
people... many of us would not be here now," Santos said before
an early performance at a central Lisbon viewpoint ahead of the
Aug. 2-6 visit by the pontiff to Portugal. Francis will attend
the World Youth Day gathering of young Catholics.
Created in 2010, the "Mare do Amanha" orchestra is the
brainchild of Carlos Prazeres and his father, Armando, a musical
conductor who was kidnapped and killed in 1999. His bloodstained
car was found in Mare.
Instead of turning his grief into hatred, Prazeres decided to
use music to get children off the streets and away from drug
dealing. Mare do Amanha has taught 3,500 children.
"It's something wonderful to feel fulfilled, seeing where we
came from and where we are now," said Santos, who joined the
project as a 9-year-old, and is the student of Ana Beatriz
Sousa, also a violinist from Mare, who is 24.
Sousa, who also studies theology at university, said that
inspiring other young people to follow in the orchestra's
footsteps keeps her going. "(It's good) to realize that I can go
further, I can be more than what society says I am."
Sousa was part of the orchestra group that met Francis in the
Vatican in 2017, an experience she will never forget.
In Portugal, they are putting on several concerts and flashmobs
to mark the Catholic event, which will bring together more than
a million pilgrims.
"I really want him (Francis) to bless these kids because they
will go back to Brazil to teach music amidst shootings and God's
protection must be with them," Prazeres said.
(Reporting by Catarina Demony, Miguel Pereira and Pedro Nunes;
Editing by Andrei Khalip and Jonathan Oatis)
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