‘Start Here and Now’ is the latest single from international band Gen Verde. A hymn of unity, strength, courage and joy featuring two youth music groups: Banda Unità (Brazil) and AsOne (Italy). ‘All of us, together with our diversity, are invited to go beyond borders to build a world where care, love, justice and inclusion are the answer to pain, the horror of wars and divisions,’ explains the band.
What is behind the song?
‘The new song is in itself a ‘beyond borders’ experience because of the way it was produced,’ the band continues. The vocals were recorded in three different parts of the world and the video was also shot in three different locations: Loppiano and Verona (Italy) and Recife (Brazil).
The project includes the participation of two youth music groups that share Gen Verde values. Banda Unità is a Brazilian band and AsOne is a band from Verona, Italy. These groups also want to share, through music, the values of peace, dialogue and universal brotherhood.
‘Start Here and Now’ has an intergenerational and intercultural mix,’ continues Gen Verde. “This single stands out for its highly engaging rhythm and powerful lyrics, sung in different languages, to bring out the creative process inspired by interculturality and the commitment to universal brotherhood that is emphasised in the international Genfest event”.
Gen Verde played this song for the first time in Aparecida, Brazil, together with the musical groups Banda Unità and AsOne on 20 July 2024 during Genfest, the Focolare Movement’s global youth event. This edition was entitled: ‘Juntos para Cuidar – Together to Care’.
We have just heard stories of peace that were expressed in the most varied forms: songs, prayers, experiences, real projects.
All this strengthens in us the confidence and hope that it is possible to be peacemakers. Pope Francis says that we must be ‘artisans of peace’ every day. And to do this we need perseverance and patience to be able to look with love at all the brothers and sisters we meet on our path.
From this Genfest we have learnt that peace begins with me, with small gestures of care for others, for our peoples and for creation.
So where can we start?
We have said it several times in these days: by breaking down all the barriers that divide us, so as to live for fraternity. And this we can do:
by discovering that our common humanity is more important than all our differences;
then by being ready to forgive and to make gestures of reconciliation. Because to forgive means to say to the other: ‘You are worth much more than your actions’.
And as we did in the first phase of Genfest, let us continue, even when we return home, to be artisans of peace in our relationships, taking the first step towards others. Love will inspire us what to do, and to whom we should go.
Let us forgive without waiting for the other person to ask for forgiveness.
May this Genfest be the moment of our YES TO PEACE.
We must never feel alone again. In these days we have seen and certainly we have experienced the power of ‘togetherness’, Juntos.
Let us be united with all those who are living and working for peace. The communities we are going to build in Phase Three are already a possible way forward.
Open your eyes to visions of peace! Speak a language of peace! Make gestures of peace! For the practice of peace leads to peace. Peace reveals itself and offers itself to those who achieve, day after day, all the forms of peace of which they are capable.(*)
Open, speak and act.
So: let us not be at peace until we bring about peace!
