Music has a great power for bringing people together. With so many forces in this world acting to drive wedges between people, it is important to preserve those things that help us experience our common humanity. Music For Harmony follows exactly this ideology and on 9th and 10th December 2009, Pravah, along with National Service Scheme (NSS), organized this campaign for peace and harmony through music over two days at North Campus, Delhi University.

 
The event was inaugurated by Dr. Vinod Lyall, Director, NSS Delhi University and Meenu Venkateswaran, CEO, Pravah. It was followed by a seminar on young people as catalysts of social change. The first speaker on the panel was Brikesh Singh from Greenpeace, who spoke about young people and the issue of climate change. This was followed by a discussion with Shreya Jani of STEP, a youth led NGO in Delhi, on how young people can be actively involved in spreading the message of peace.
 
Subsequently, Deepjyoti Sonu Brahma of Pravah held an interactive session where he spoke about how young people can become more engaged with the social sector by volunteering in their free time. To promote volunteerism, stalls were set up by different voluntary organizations such as Goonj, Greenpeace, Kriti, and Save the Children. The stalls got a great response with many young people signing up to volunteer with various organizations.
 
The second day saw a host of musical performances by various bands from Delhi and Jaipur. The day saw the coming together diverse genres of music - popular, western, folk and instrumental along with a variety of other engaging performing arts like theatre, exhibition and games to reflect the idea of ‘unity in diversity’ and celebrate and spread the message of peace and harmony!
 
On this day, the atmosphere was electric and almost “carnival-esque” with stalls for face painting and a peace tree where people could write messages for peace. Many voluntary organizations also sold handicrafts and products made by their volunteers to raise money.  The event ended with a group f young people lighting candles for peace.
 
Music for Harmony is organized every year since 2002 by young volunteers of SMILE, a programme run by Pravah to support college students to engage meaningfully with society.
 
Click here to see the photos!