Gen Verde: a tour in Eastern Europe to build dialogue and peace with young people

Adriana Masotti – Vatican City

A 42-day tour for Gen Verde, the all-female international band born in 1966 in Loppiano, citadel of the Focolare Movement near Florence, one of the musical and artistic expressions of Chiara Lubich’s spirituality of unity. Four European countries were touched between July and August: Germany, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Eight cities, 4600 km traveled to give life to various concerts, meetings, artistic workshops also within events organized locally for young people. And then an infinite number of moments that will remain in the hearts of the 19 artists of the Group confirming that building a world of peace, having the courage to believe in it, still hoping, is possible. “In recent weeks on the streets of Europe – reports a press release, at the end of the tour – the band has met many and many who live and fight for a more just world for everyone”.

An ecumenical event opens the tour

On 2 July, Stadthagen (Lower Saxony), the first city of the tour in Germany, welcomed Gen Verde. The invitation, arrived from the Lutheran bishop dr. Karl-Hinrich Manzke, was attending a festival on the theme of justice The initiative involves all the schools of the diocese, with over 3000 young people who participated in the various projects proposed and, among these, the band’s “Start Now Workshop Project” of Loppiano. “It was a very rich experience of profound ecumenical dialogue, in addition to the work with young people in the workshops that went very well”, says the manager of Gen Verde, Sally McAllister who comes from Ireland, “once again the confirmation of how much the ‘art is an effective and strong tool to foster dialogue, integration and peace ”.

In Germany, the concert in a women’s prison

One of the most intense moments of the tour was that lived in Vechta, still in Germany, where Gen Verde played for about 70 inmates. Strong empathy and emotion both for them and for the members of the band. “This was one of the most beautiful concerts of my life and I have done many – says the American Nancy Uelmen, singer, pianist and composer of Gen Verde -, I will never forget the faces of these women, as they listened so carefully to every word that we sang. And while our eyes met, it was like a profound conversation with each one ”. “The stories of the songs are also my past and that’s why I don’t feel alone with my pain”, writes one of the women inmates present at the concert, “now I know that other people with the same stories, with the same pain , they managed to find happiness “.

“We Choose Peace”, the anthem of the entire tour

The song “We Choose Peace”, launched last May, invites us to raise our voices, as a single human family, to say “no” to war and injustice. Sung live for the first time on this tour, it is the song that resonates the strongest given the dramatic situation that is experienced a few kilometers away. Everyone stands up to sing it during the last concerts in Germany, in Garrel and Schwerte, before leaving for Poland. The presence of Gen Verde in Krakow is part of the international meeting of “socioMovens”, a youth social network from Central and Eastern Europe. There, too, the international band proposed to a hundred young people from Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Poland, Romania, Croatia and Hungary, the artistic and musical project called “Start Now Workshop Project”, which aims to educate for peace and dialogue. in the acceptance of cultural diversity.

Faces of some guys in the audience

We have discovered a little light within each of us

To complete the tour two more stops: the first in Prešov, in eastern Slovakia just 122 km from the border with Ukraine. And there are also 50 young people from Kiev to participate, together with over 100 Slovaks, in the “Start Now Workshop Project”. “Before we came, we weren’t sure what we were getting into. At first we didn’t even want to go out of ourselves… then in the workshops we discovered that we all had a lot in common, even if we didn’t know each other or couldn’t understand each other for different languages. So we discovered that each of us has a little light inside of us, although we also carry our own darks. This experience is unforgettable: I will take it with me for the rest of my life ”, said Alžbetka and Elishka, two young girls from Slovakia after the workshop. The final stage was in the Czech Republic, with a meeting in the frame of the “National Youth Meeting 2022” in Hradec Králové where the band talked with young people of different nationalities creating programs and artistic workshops with them.