There is no doubt that music is the universal language that appeals to people of all ages, all regions and religions. Musical songs are the soul of our human existence and we all have varied choices to let in our ears to groove in our hearts.
Music is an established commercial business today that caters to millions for their entertainment. However, this melodious medium can be utilized to convey a social message. Despite the abundance of music albums and musicians around us, we rarely find musicians lending their voice for a social cause. Very few occasions, we find musical events that are dedicated to create public awareness on different social causes.
Fortunately there are concerned individuals who bring together groups of soulful singers and musical bands to play for a cause that is much larger than the commercial aspects of the event. Sunday Soul Sante, Vasantahabba, NH7 Weekender are some of musical festivals that utilize music to bring the spotlight on social cause.
Global Citizen Festival India is one such attempt for bringing together musicians to sing for a cause and raise funds. The event is organised by the Global Education & Leadership Foundation, a US-based organization that has chosen to address a range of social issues through a unique method of urging youth to campaign for their pet social cause on social media and garner maximum support. Volunteers can win tickets for the musical concert if they successfully raise funds for their cause on Ketto.org, a crowd-funding website.
The Global Citizen Festival supports three main social causes –
- Education – focus is on reaching out to underprivileged children and providing education to them
- Gender Equality – focus is on helping acid attack victims, preventing child marriage and empowering women to educate themselves
- Water & Sanitation – focus is on preventing open defecation and finding innovative solutions for sanitation in slums
Apart from these, volunteers can choose a variety of other global issues that are part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. By taking these actions, 23,000 global citizens have already won free tickets to the festival. It could be the biggest gathering of young people for a social cause with 70,000 people expected to gather for the festival in Mumbai on 19 November 2016.
The festival features pop culture icons such as Coldplay, Jay Z, Demi Lovato, Aamir Khan, Arijit Singh, Arjun Kapoor, A.R. Rahman, Amitabh Bachchan, Ayushmann Khurrana, Dia Mirza, Farhan Akhtar and many others, who will join hands with public policy makers in the government to commit to change and pledge their support to the issues that matter the most.
Since the movement was launched in India on 12 September, around 1.5 million actions have been taken by committed global citizens who are knowledgeable about global diversity and passionate about change. This is the first time that the Global Citizen movement has moved outside of North America and the youth of India have embraced the movement as a powerful way to amplify their voice as well as to catalyse change.
You too can join this unique movement to promote a social cause through music!
Factfile –
Image sources –
www.globalcitizen.in
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