El Sistema Greece: Designing Continuity with a Portable Learning Product

Authors: Rose Martus (USA), Sandra Rivera (El Salvador), Natalia Bohorquez (Colombia), Emily Davis (UK)

BACKGROUND

El Sistema Greece (ESG) was founded in 2016 after its founders observed that children in Greek refugee camps lacked structure, access to education, and opportunities to heal and integrate. ESG’s mission is inclusion and peace through free music education for migrant and refugee youth. Since launch, more than 2,500 students ages three to twenty six have participated in classes that include theory and literacy, choir, orchestra, and individual lessons. The team consists of a small board and administrative staff supported by thirteen teaching artists. Programs now reach beyond camps into Athens to buffer against volatility in camp operations and residency duration, which can range from days to years. Funding comes from Friends of El Sistema Greece in the United States, foundations, concert income, and private donors.

BUSINESS AND ORGANIZATIONAL MODEL

ESG operates a lean teaching-artist model that delivers high-touch instruction in unstable environments. The pedagogy assumes inconsistent attendance and prioritizes meaningful single-session impact while building toward longer-term learning for students who remain. Governance and operations are small by design, which enables rapid geographic shifts when camps close or populations move. Brand equity and international artist relationships strengthen visibility and partnerships. The economic engine is largely philanthropic, which requires consistent storytelling, clear mission language for funders, and program formats that show tangible progress even with transient cohorts.

STRATEGIC CHALLENGE

ESG’s core risk is discontinuity. Student transience, unpredictable camp policies, and public-health shocks threaten access and learning flow. Even when ESG adapts by opening city-based choirs and orchestras, many students still experience interruption when families relocate. The strategic question is how to deliver durable value to every student regardless of length of stay, while also creating an asset that can travel with them and potentially open a modest earned-income or sponsorship channel.

VALUE-ADDED CONCEPT

The proposed response is a portable learning product called the Young Musician’s Note-Pad. It is a guided journal and activity book paired with simple video content that enables self-led musical play, reflection, and family participation. The Note-Pad captures lesson takeaways, reinforces notation through approachable exercises, and invites students to improvise with voice, body percussion, and found objects so that instrument access is not a barrier. Activities are written for wide age and literacy ranges and encourage students to teach peers and family members, extending ESG’s pedagogy into homes and new locales when students move. Initial editions would launch in Greek and English, with visual scaffolding to support multilingual use and later translation into camp languages. The product is conceived first as a continuity tool and second as a lightweight platform for awareness, partnerships, and potential sales outside ESG that could subsidize free distribution inside camps.

IMPLEMENTATION CONSIDERATIONS

Execution requires two stages. The first is content and design. A small team of teaching artists drafts journal prompts, micro-lessons, and at-home activities that align with ESG’s class routines and can stand alone. A child and family psychologist reviews content to ensure it is supportive for youth with trauma histories and to add simple reflective practices tied to regulation and agency building. Graphic designers translate the curriculum into a highly legible, image-forward format and create iconography that reduces dependence on text. Short companion videos demonstrate exercises without heavy spoken language so they remain usable across cultures.

The second stage is translation, distribution, and basic commercialization. After field testing an English and Greek prototype, ESG prioritizes languages present in current camps and diaspora communities. Distribution is integrated into class intake and exit so every student leaves with a copy. For outside audiences, ESG can pilot sales through partner programs and online channels using a one-for-one model where each purchase funds a free copy for a refugee child. This approach demands simple unit economics. Printing and binding should target a cost of three to five dollars per copy, with donor underwriting or margin from external sales covering free distribution.

Operational risks include staff capacity for product development, the need for ongoing reprints and translations, uneven digital access for video companions, and quality control as materials travel beyond ESG’s direct oversight. Mitigations include a limited initial print run tied to a defined testing period, clear creative commons or licensing choices for responsible sharing, QR codes that can be accessed asynchronously when connectivity allows, and a feedback loop from teachers and families to iterate content.

IMPACT ANALYSIS

The Note-Pad directly addresses continuity by giving each student a personal artifact that captures progress and prompts ongoing music making after relocation. It supports identity and agency by belonging to the child and by inviting them to lead simple activities with family members, which can strengthen social bonds and reduce isolation. For ESG, the product codifies pedagogy, which improves consistency across sites and eases onboarding of new teaching artists. It also creates a tangible story for funders that connects individual sessions to longer arcs of learning. If external sales or sponsorships prove viable, the Note-Pad can diversify revenue modestly without distracting from core delivery.

Measurement should balance practicality with credibility. A short intake and exit survey can track perceived confidence, frequency of musical activity at home, and willingness to share music with others. Follow-ups are challenging when families move, but ESG can test a low-burden messaging channel with partner NGOs to sample outcomes at three to six months. Program-level indicators include distribution counts, teacher assessments of engagement, and qualitative stories that link Note-Pad use to class participation when students re-enter ESG in Athens.

DECISION POINT

ESG must decide whether to invest in developing and deploying the Young Musician’s Note-Pad as a core program asset, or to continue allocating scarce capacity primarily to in-person instruction and city-based ensembles without a portable product. Committing to the Note-Pad will require up-front content development, translation, and logistics, with the potential to stabilize learning for transient students and to create a small but durable earned or sponsored revenue stream. Deferring the product preserves staff focus on live teaching but leaves the continuity gap unaddressed and maintains full dependence on presence-based delivery in an inherently unstable setting.