The purpose of La Movida is to teach children and teenagers who live in underprivileged areas that developing interests in life, and working in order to develop skills in such interests leads to a more fulfilling life. In this sense, La Movida is a project which pursues a change in the culture of children and teenagers, promoting values such as hard work, responsibility and team work through music.

La Movida targets children and teenagers (ages 8-17) who live in underprivileged areas in the northern suburbs of Buenos Aires (Argentina). La Movida works in the Los Troncos area (Tigre county, Province of Buenos Aires), in a context of
poverty and lack of education, where these children and teenagers are usually part of large families, lead parents (mostly very young in age, in certain cases even under
twenty years old) who lack some of the basic skills to face the challenge of raising children (especially in this
hostile context) and, in many cases, lacking any kind of work ethics since they have been able to live on welfare or similar programs granted by national, provincial or local governmental and non-governmental organisations (such as unemployment subsidies or other; the current “Asignación Universal Por Hijo” Program [‘Assistance For Each Child’], carried out by the National Government, is an example of this). Furthermore,
other institutions which impact on the education of these children and teenagers (such as the public schools to which they attend), are not able to provide the support they require in order to pursue fulfilling lives.
Consequently, children and teenagers raised in this context (lacking work ethics and support) are not able to learn the lesson “hard work brings rewards”, which in turn means that they can hardly improve their living conditions and, as a result, they cannot lead lives which will help them develop better conditions for them and their families.

Additionally, due to low education levels and poor governmental policies, substance abuse (especially drug abuse) and crime are widespread in the Los Troncos area, as in most suburbs of Buenos Aires. As a consequence of the high exposure of children and teenagers to these phenomena, they are vulnerable to such contact and therefore evaluate them as “normal” events, subject to the additional risk of being potentially caught up in any of these vices.

• Date: July 2012
  
• Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina