Music for Peace

Music for Peace (MfP) is an initiative of performing artists in northern Uganda that was created to promote the power of music in peacebuilding and build solidarity among artists from conflict and post-conflict areas in Africa. Founded in 2009 by northern Ugandan artistes Jeff Korondo and Jahria Okwera, and peacebuilder Lindsay McClain Opiyo, MfP promotes music as a forum to generate dialogue and

raise awareness on issues affecting war-affected communities. In 2010, MfP organized a month-long peace music competition in Gulu and Kitgum, Uganda, and led a delegation of two northern Ugandan artists to Sierra Leone to participate in an artistic and cultural exchange with Freetong Players International (FPI), a Sierra Leonean performance troupe. During the exchange, participating artists produced a collaborative song, titled “One Africa,” that calls for unity and solidarity across Africa, rather than conflict and corruption. In recent months, MfP has been conducting strategic planning and designing a one-year study on music and conflict transformation in the Acholi sub-region of northern Uganda that was launched in June 2013. The study aims to document conflict-related music and to better understand how a variety of musical genres emergent during northern Uganda’s periods of violence have contributed to constructive change in individuals affected by conflict and in dimensions of relational, structural, and cultural change.