Everyone knows music brings people together – but in Venezuela, hundreds of thousands of children are joining a classical music program which offers them all a chance to escape from poverty.

In 1975, Dr. José Antonio Abreu decided that the povery-mired children of Venezuela needed a new social framework to help get themselves on their feet – and that it should be built around classical music. Today, el Sistema (or, fully, the National Network of Youth and Children Orchestras of Venezuela) is made up of over 800 ensembles, orchestras and choirs across the country, and an estimated 800,000 children have followed the program in the last three decades.