Matthew Vila, of Colombian and Cuban origin, who at the age of 15 founded a non-profit organization in Miami that offers free music classes to young people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, said in an interview with EFE that his purpose is to make them feel capable and included.
“I want to dedicate the rest of my entire life to this cause,” Vila said of her project, which has a structured curriculum that integrates music therapy techniques based on Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA).
“People who say that music is not for children with special abilities, they don’t know children with special abilities. They don’t know my students. Because those kids are rockstars,” the young man stated.
Vila has already distributed, through the Guitar Center Music Foundation, $15,000 worth of instruments to students, ensuring that his program is free for families.
“Parents have to pay so much money for therapies,” she explained, so “I decided that I wanted to do a free program.”
Vila recently received the Gloria Barron Young Heroes 2025 Award, which annually recognizes the impact of 25 young people in their communities and the environment, 15 of whom each receive $10,000 to support their service work or higher education.
Although Vila felt “a lot of pride and excitement” when he was told the news, for him “every recognition is something extra,” because his goal is not to be awarded, but to help children with disabilities.
Matthew Vila’s great idea
The initiative, which Matthew began in August 2023 with three volunteer teachers and five students with special needs, now has a team of 40 student musicians teaching more than 70 youth, ages three months to 18 years, at nine locations in Miami-Dade County.
“I want to expand, whether it’s in the United States or in other countries,” remarks the determined young man, “because I know the music works.”
To that end, Vila recently published ‘Harmony in our Hearts,’ a children’s book about a boy with autism who manages to overcome his fear of performing in the school talent show, the proceeds of which will go toward the expansion of Harmony Hugs.
About five years ago, when the Covid-19 pandemic began, Vila discovered in a closet in his house the guitar his Colombian grandfather bought in Cartagena and “since that day I have played the guitar every day of my life. It is my greatest passion in the world,” he said.
As a ninth grader in high school, a senior in twelfth grade named him president of his school’s student group for Best Buddies, the world’s largest organization for children with special abilities, and Vila began organizing activities, recruiting volunteers and promoting the organization’s mission at his school.
This experience, along with his passion for music, helped him discover his vocation: to use his musical talent to help young people with disabilities.
“There is nothing more inspiring than the stories of heroic people who have truly made a difference in the world,” stressed American writer T. A. Barron, founder of the Barron Prize.
“And today we need our heroes more than ever. Not celebrities, but heroes: people whose character can inspire us all,” he added.
Vila knows he is “making a difference” with “the smiles you see on these children’s faces when they play an instrument. It’s something that can’t be described in words,” he said, reported Agencia EFE.
Find out more at ‘QueOnnda.com’.