Elementary school children in all of New Brunswick will soon benefit from a "renowned, world-leading program in social change," the provincial government has announced.

Adam Huras/Telegraph-Journal

Beaverbrook School student Curtis Paquette, 10, plays with students of Sistema New Brunswick on Wednesday. The provincial government has announced $1.84 million in funding to expand Sistema New Brunswick to run four children's centres across the province by 2014.

Business New Brunswick Minster Victor Boudreau said Wednesday in Moncton that the province will invest $1.84 million to expand Sistema New Brunswick, a groundbreaking program brought to the province by New Brunswick Youth Orchestra that aims to inspire children through music.

The success of the New Brunswick prototype in just its first year based at Moncton's Beaverbrook School will now be duplicated to add three new children's orchestras in communities across the province.

While there are currently 50 children from four Moncton schools gathering to learn viola, violin, cello and bass several times each week, that number will now expand to involve more than 500 elementary school kids.

"The results have been phenomenal," says Ken MacLeod, president of the NBYO board of directors.

"Through music, the lives of the children have been enriched and in addition to developing music skills there have been other benefits: improved literacy and performance in school, more self-confidence and self-esteem, the feeling of belonging and the knowledge of how to work together as a team."

The program is modelled after Venezuela's El Sistema program which has produced some of the world's finest musicians through a program where some 400,000 children attend music schools around the country.

Roughly 90 per cent of them are from poor socio-economic backgrounds.

"We saw how El Sistema was changing the lives of thousands of children in that country," MacLeod said. "This is a renowned, world-leading program in social change. It becomes an engine for human development.

"What a difference this will make for those children who are so often left out."

The only criterion for joining Sistema New Brunswick is that you be a student. There are no auditions and no musical aptitude is necessary.

This year, 150 students applied for spots and names were, literally, drawn from a hat.

"It provides them with the opportunity to develop both their creative side and their social side," said Sara Liptay, the centre's first director. "These are skills they wouldn't get until later in life, if at all.

"We are attempting to form great citizens from very early on, and what I have seen first-hand, it's working."

MacLeod said that the three new locations have yet to be determined, and that a second centre will not be added until roughly September 2011. It will take its time in perfecting the current program and then make a decision on where to expand.

"We want to be in communities where there is a higher percentage of low-income families because one of the objectives of this program is to provide options for children with families that don't have them," MacLeod said.

"We also want one of the centres to be in a community where the first language is French, and then part of it depends on the level of partnership we have from the community because we can't do it alone.

"The funding from the province is really important in that it gives us a solid base, but we still have to fundraise an equal amount over the next four years with the help of community partners."

There is no shortage of communities wanting the services of the program.

"We are getting calls almost weekly and we have been for the last several months," MacLeod said. "There has always been a tremendous amount of interest in this."

(Adam Huras for the Telegraph Journal)