The first-ever Peace Day Anthem will premiere at the Peace One Day Youth Celebration in Kigali, Rwanda on September 21, 2015.
The anthem, written by musician Zwai Bala and produced by Coke Studio Africa, is hoped to inspire a generation of young people to celebrate Peace Day as a catalyst for sustainable peace in the region. The anthem, played in front of thousands of young people and beamed live on the Rwanda Broadcasting Agency (RBA), will be performed by top artistes of the African music industry Ice Prince (Nigeria), Dama Do Bling (Mozambique), Maurice Kirya (Uganda), Alikiba (Tanzania) and Wangechi (Kenya), who will be joined by leading dance groups Krest Crew and Jabba Junior and artistes Innoss’B, Urban Boyz and Knowless.
The Peace One Day Youth Celebration 2015, which is part of Peace One Day’s wider campaign in the region made possible by the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, is being organised in partnership with the Rwandan National Unity and Reconciliation Commission (NURC) and supported by the Rwandan Ministry of Youth and ICT and the Ministry of Sports and Culture. The event will highlight how peace can be nurtured through music, dance, and sport, and will feature young people from the region who will share their inspirational personal experiences of peace.
“I am thrilled to be marking this Peace Day with the first-ever Peace Day Anthem being performed on stage in Kigali thanks to Coca-Cola and it being broadcast live into Rwanda and the world on the Rwanda Broadcasting Agency network,” said Peace One Day founder Jeremy Gilley.
Gilley added: “I’m extremely grateful to RBA for enabling Peace One Day to empower young people from not only Rwanda and the wider Great Lakes region of Africa but also globally to become the driving force behind the vision of a united and sustainable world, using Peace Day 21 September as a focus for their actions for peace.”
The Peace Day Anthem will be available on iTunes from September 21, 2015, with all proceeds going to the non-profit organisation Peace One Day to support its mission to reach three billion people with the message of Peace Day by 2016.
A non-profit organization, Peace One Day was founded in 1999 by filmmaker Jeremy Gilley and today, it is reported that over 1 billion people have been exposed to peace day messages, with another 10 million reportedly behaving more peacefully after getting involved in the activities of the day.
