This paper presents findings from a doctoral study examining Canto por la Vida, a community-based music school and cultural foundation located in Ginebra, Valle del Cauca, Colombia. Nationally recognised for its training programme centred on Colombian Andean music, this initiative has offered artistic and educational opportunities to hundreds of children and young people for over 25 years. Using an ethnographic approach, the study investigates how the school’s musical, organisational, and relational practices reveal the complexities of using music as a catalyst for human and social development in the Global South.The research demonstrates how diverse philosophies, practices and expectations surrounding music-making converge, clash, and coexist within a single educational and cultural project, shaping the multifaceted notion of social impact. It identifies four interrelated and dynamic dimensions: tradition, understood as the preservation and re-signification of musical heritage; alternativity, referring to creative, pedagogical, and aesthetic experimentation; subjectivity, centred on personal growth and the recognition of individual life projects; and sustainability, concerned with the long-term viability and coherence of the organisation. These dimensions, while distinct, are mutually constitutive, offering a framework for understanding how music education initiatives negotiate the balance between continuity and change, autonomy and collective purpose, artistry and social mission.The paper argues that embracing the tensions among these dimensions fosters innovation, adaptability, and authenticity, but also exposes the fragility of institutional life in contexts marked by weak participatory cultures and intolerance of dissent. Drawing on Kaës’s (1989) concept of institutional suffering and Lederach’s (2005) notion of moral imagination, the study suggests that sustainable musical social action depends on cultivating paradoxical thinking, relational awareness, and creative risk-taking as strategies for navigating conflict and diversity.By situating Canto por la Vida within broader debates on music education and social action, this paper contributes a Latin American perspective that challenges universalist assumptions in the field. It argues that social impact in music is not a fixed outcome but an evolving process of negotiation shaped by relationships, differences, and shared meanings. Ultimately, Canto por la Vida exemplifies how engaging—rather than erasing—conflict sustains collective learning and transformation, offering a plural and politically conscious vision of music’s role in fostering dialogue, coexistence, and conflict management in increasingly polarised societies.