For over thirty years, OTI – Officine Terapie Innovative has been working to promote health, also in the sense of physical and mental well-being.
When the passion for one’s work and territory of origin meet the love of culture and music combined with a sensitivity towards the future of young people, projects are born that are destined to leave a mark.

For the 2021-2022 school year, OTI has decided to support an innovative social project, “El Sistema: the Abreu program in the prevention of juvenile hardship”, an activity promoted by Manfredo Di Crescenzo (conductor), aimed at children aged between 11 and 14 who live in the San Donato, Rancitelli and Zanni districts of Pescara; areas believed to be amongst the poorest, most disadvantaged and with the highest concentrations of criminal activity in the whole of Italy.

“El Sistema”
created by José Antonio Abreu Anselmi in 1975 in Venezuela

This innovative music-education program has succeeded in training more than two million young Venezuelans from run-down neighbourhoods. Taking them off the street, it has used music as a means of social redemption and an effective means of preventing juvenile hardship.

OTI’s Commitment

OTI has decided to actively contribute, integrating the institutional contributions of the EU, the Abruzzo Region and the Municipality of Pescara, with donations aimed at supporting 90 young people who have already begun to study within a symphony orchestra and a polyphonic choir, collegial elements that become an essential didactic tool for the success of the project.

In fact, by feeling they belong to a coordinated group and project, young musicians are personally empowered, they can live up to comparisons with others in a positive manner and they are driven to improve, not only to show that they themselves can fulfil the role but also to avoid undermining the success of the group, contributing to their own success and that of the other choir/orchestra members.

The project is being led by the Associazione Musicale “G. Rossini” of Roseto degli Abruzzi, together with two prestigious international partners, the Fondazione Vozes di Barcellona (Spain) and the Associação Sójovem das Saibreiras (Portugal).

Part of the activities involves Erasmus trips to Spain and Portugal for students so that good practices can be exchanged with other young people who have already been part of an Abreu program for several years.

For more information