Sao Paulo, Brazil (CNN) -- The violin she uses is cheap by most standards: made in China, it costs about $150. But that's an absolute fortune for Yanca Leite. On the day we visited her, the 15-year-old aspiring musician couldn't even afford breakfast. Yanca shares a one-bedroom shack with eight relatives in a sprawling shantytown on the outskirts of Sao Paulo called Paraisopolis, or Paradise City. The narrow path leading to their door is lined with the bottles and cans they collect to supplement their income. "The guy who recycles these bottles didn't pick them up and pay us," Yanca said. "So we didn't have money to buy bread."
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A program in Brazil is offering free classical music training to children in the slums
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It's empowering the children and giving them a chance at a brighter future
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There are 11 million Brazilians living in slums; more than 1 billion worldwide are in slums
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Top 10 CNN Hero Thulani Madondo is educating hundreds of slum kids in South Africa
He reinvented himself as a successful composer, and seven years ago he went to one of @placeholder's notorious favelas, or slums, in search of raw talent.