The Voice Project, a music-based initiative that raises awareness and support for the violence in the region of Central East Africa, released a video today featuring Peter Gabriel covering Tom Waits‘ “In The Neighborhood.” The song premiered across five nonprofit websites: Invisible Children, Oxfam America, Resolve Uganda, WITNESS and HOPE Campaign. With The Voice Project, artists from around the world are covering one another’s songs to spread the message of peace, like the women in Uganda.
Groups of Ugandan females have been using music to send messages of forgiveness to those who have been abducted and forced to brutally fight and are now hiding, too afraid to return home for fear of anger from the community. The songs are played on the radio and passed by word of mouth to let the soldiers know they are forgiven and can come home.
“The life I was leading was a hopeless life and I could not imagine that I could come back home,” said former child soldier Odong Martin. “When I heard the song I felt happiness in my heart and I began to say that surely, people at home are really caring for us, that they are longing for us.”
With the help musicians globally, The Voice Project hopes to amplify the message in their songs and empower the women to live better lives and bring about peace.
Watch Gabriel cover of Waits’ “In The Neighborhood.”
Photo by Marcela via Wikimedia Commons.