Thanks to a World Youth Orchestra project, a group of orphaned or abandoned children welcomed by the Missionaries of Charity had the opportunity to take part in music and singing workshops. Discovering talents and potential.

With its ultra-modern skyscrapers, its wide and very busy streets, but above all its endless suburbs, Ho Chi Minh City – or Saigon as many continue to call it – is a metropolis that seems to never end. The noise of thousands of scooters whizzing around everywhere and the milky sky of humidity and pollution contribute to creating a bubble effect from which it seems you can no longer escape.
Then, finally, the buildings and noises thin out, and disappear almost completely when you cross the gate of the large house of the Missionaries of Charity of Bin Dhuong, where instead you can only hear the cries of the newborn and the voices of a children’s choir. It is a small world apart. The nuns – who here do not wear the traditional white sari bordered with blue, but simple black trousers and white or blue blouses – are full of smiles and care, but they only speak Vietnamese. That they are the Missionaries of Charity, however, is beyond doubt given the numerous images of Mother Teresa that appear everywhere.

“For these kids, learning to play an instrument is something special” (Photo: World Youth Orchestra/Facebook)

But it is also the style that speaks of a presence and a commitment that is also realized here alongside the poorest of the poor: orphaned or abandoned children. In this house, which was recently expanded thanks to a donation – or Providence, as Sister Marie-Lucie, the only one who speaks a little French after having spent a few years in Nice, says – there are about eighty children. Some are just born. Others have just turned 18. Most of them are involved in a project involving the World Youth Orchestra, which has created a music and singing school here that began last February and ended in recent weeks. The orchestra, which is based in Rome but is composed and recomposed of new musicians based on the places and projects it brings to life, landed in Vietnam last year, where in April it performed two concerts in the capital Hanoi, accompanied by a theatre course and a university lecture on Puccini on the occasion of the centenary of his death. In Saigon, instead, the more social part of the project “Sounds of Brotherhood” was realized.

“Music is a universal language that creates incredible connections” (Photo: World Youth Orchestra/Facebook)

The idea came almost by chance or – as Sister Marie-Lucie, who was also superior to the Bin Dhuong community, would reiterate – by the hand of Providence. Two years ago, the organizer of the orchestra’s tour, Matteo Penazzi, and a Vietnamese priest, Father Dominic Nguyen, who was travelling to the World Youth Day in Lisbon, met in Taizé, in a completely fortuitous way. From that meeting, these workshops were born, involving children and teenagers hosted by the missionaries and five Vietnamese teachers, all very young and motivated.
Nguyen Hoang Le Vu, 23, is the coordinator. A music teacher in a school in Ho Chi Minh City, he also directs the choir of his parish. The young teacher is rather strict and demanding, but he also shows great empathy with the children: “When I see their commitment and their joy in trying their hand at singing and playing musical instruments, I feel happy. They give me great energy and repay me for all my efforts”.
“Many of them – Bao Tran, 20, a violin teacher, points out – had only seen a musical instrument in cartoons! They would never have thought of picking one up and learning to play it”. Instead, once the singing rehearsals are over, the slightly older boys and girls split into groups and begin rehearsals: some on the violin, some on the piano, some on the drums… “For these kids, learning to play an instrument is something special”, Bao Tran reiterates. Music, after all, has also changed her life, as has the solidarity of her parish community, which helped her financially to take the conservatory exam. “Now I feel I have to give back what I have received to these children who don’t even have a family”.

Through music, values such as peace, brotherhood, equality and dignity are spread. (Photo: World Youth Orchestra/Facebook)

In fact, behind the appearance of serenity and harmony that music and singing transmit, there are many stories of suffering and often violence. The children taken in by Mother Teresa’s nuns all have very difficult situations behind them. “Many of them are orphans,” Sister Marie-Lucie explains, “or are children of single mothers, who have been abandoned. Sometimes the girls themselves are kicked out of their families. Giving birth to a child outside of marriage is considered a great dishonour,
a cause for shame.”
Currently, the nuns take in some single mothers who have been rejected by their families or are victims of violence. One of them looks like a child herself as she cradles her newborn baby. “She is 15 years old,” the nun tells us, “But sometimes they are even younger. We try to find the parents to try to send them back home. Many, however, refuse, also because they often live in absolute poverty and precariousness.”
Next to the newborns’ room, some older children are learning to walk. They are curious and lively. One of the nuns plays with them. In total, there are about twenty of Mother Teresa’s nuns who take care of these children just as in a large family, where they try to heal the traumas of abandonment and often of violence and to give them the tools so that they can walk alone, independently, one day.

Learn to play classical and traditional Vietnamese instruments, create and improve relationships”.(Photo: World Youth Orchestra/Facebook)

A great deal of effort, including financial, is devoted to training. This includes music. “It is a universal language that creates incredible connections – says Maestro Damiano Giuranna, founder and director of the World Youth Orchestra, founded in 2001, with the idea of promoting young talent around the world, but also of being able to operate as an instrument of “cultural diplomacy” capable of spreading values such as peace, brotherhood, equality and dignity. And, before arriving in Vietnam, the orchestra performed in places and situations of conflict or crisis. “After the experiences in countries such as Israel, Palestine, Iran, Morocco, Lebanon, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria and at the UN in New York, the ‘Sounds of Brotherhood’ project also led us to experiment with this form of solidarity through the musical workshops created with the Missionaries of Charity. The children and young people who were involved were thus able to learn the first rudiments of music, learn to play classical and traditional Vietnamese instruments, create a choir and improve their relational skills”. And also look to the future with greater confidence. (Photo: World Youth Orchestra/Facebook) –

Anna Pozzi/MM