'Let's sing Another History', the initiative that seeks Colombians to donate instruments

The UN Verification Mission recently created the Let's Sing Another Story initiative, which aims to unite the country around music and its life stories. This campaign invites those who have well-maintained guitars, drums, violins or keyboards to donate them for the benefit of communities, seedbeds and artistic collectives in small municipalities or districts that have been touched by violence and that lack the financial resources to acquire them.

“These tools allow them to educate themselves not only in art, or as a way to heal their history, but also to build a different memory of their community, from the exercise of musical creation,” the UN said in a statement.

According to the international organization, Cantemos Otra Historia aims to collect at the national level the largest number of musical instruments to put them in the hands of children and young people who will find music a powerful tool to educate themselves and a gateway to a collective, sensitive and supportive life project.

“We have identified through work in the territory and in communications with different populations and communities that need the instruments. Children and young people who already have an ongoing training process who belong to groups of young people at risk of recruitment, communities of children of ex-combatants, folklore nurseries and ancestral music in communities victims of violence,” says the UN Verification Mission.

According to the organization, the call to donate will be made until December 20, which will be announced in various media outlets to donate musical instruments in good condition, taking them properly packaged and labeled to shipping authorisations throughout the country, which can be consulted at www.envia.co/promociones.

Cantemos Otra Historia will also invite renowned artists inside and outside Colombia to join by making their donation and sharing their message through their social networks. The initiative will end with a special closing day on Friday, December 20, with a live radio broadcast in which donors will be able to participate by carrying an instrument and sharing their story of that object, which will now be in the hands of a child from a seedbed somewhere remote in the country.

This is an original idea by Colombian musician and peace activist César López, organized by the 24-0 Foundation, the UN Verification Mission in Colombia and Caracol Radio with the logistical support of Negrita Films' 500 authorized shipping service points and audiovisual production.

López said in an interview with W radio: “We artists must get off the stage and leave the studios and go touring the country (...) A musical instrument is a gateway to a life project”.

In 2014, as a result of the cries of the community of las pavas in southern Bolivar, who were urged to sing what had happened to them during years of conflict, the Musical Instrument Bank project was born with the aim of providing music tools to children, young people and adults who come to the most remote territories. of the country, healing the wounds of war and writing a new story.

Over the next two years, thanks to new partners, nearly 1,300 more instruments were raised and delivered to communities far from urban centers. This collection and delivery process was recorded in a documentary series and allowed the establishment of new needs of communities.

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