History of A Call 2Peace Foundation
Our first chapter started on February 2003 and it was simply named, the “A Call 2Peace Concert Series”, featuring artists from different places and cultures, and included performances at stages in Tokyo, Japan; Strasbourg, France; Montevideo and Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay; Pepperdine University, Malibu, California; Geneva (private concert), Switzerland; Copenhagen University of Life, Denmark and Echo Valley Farm, Wisconsin, USA.
The experience felt in stages throughout different countries and continents, brought clarity to the understanding of our common nature of Peace and the universal language of the arts.
The inspiration to benefit like minded charity organizations, came during the production for our live concert/event in Strasbourg, France on July of 2010.
We invited several organizations including Oxfam, UNICEF, Handicap International, WAFA Awards, Être Un C’est Tout & The Prem Rawat Foundation, to place booths at the Mutzig Arena’s lobby, to exhibit their work, provide information materials for the concert attendees and subscriptions to those interested in their work and raise funds for their efforts.
The last concert of this first chapter took place in Wisconsin at the Echo Valley Farm during their 2011 “Widening the Circle Summer Festival”
Our second chapter of the AC2P Concert Series, focused on performing locally. Our first performance in this chapter took place at the Universalist Unitarian Church of Santa Paula, California on May 15th, 2015, featuring the new A Call 2Peace core group of musicians with Scarlet Rivera on violin, Federico Ramos on guitars, Ron Wagner on drums and percussion and Eduardo Del Signore on basses. Soon after we were joined by opera singer Sonia Kazarova, who brought an energetic expansion to the dynamic range of our music work.
These are some of the organizations we worked with during our first and second chapters, organizing music, poetry and dance events to raise funds and awareness of their work:
- Armory of Harmony – melting and smelting decommissioned and repurchased guns by police stations to make musical instruments, distributing them to schools across America
- Center for Reflective Parenting – parenting education
- Committee for Racial Justice – promotion of racial justice
- Echo Valley Hope – sustainability education from Echo Valley Farm.
- Handicap International – teams of people acting on the frontiers of the world’s most pressing emergencies, promoting disability rights, providing rehabilitation and ensuring that people live safely after conflict.
- I BULIEVE – Storytelling for inspiring change and engendering transformation…from the inside out.
- Jug Water Life – clean water systems
- Kids City Hope Place – tuition for underserved children
- Ocean Charter School – a community of families and educators committed to achieving academic excellence through experiential learning, and rigorous practice of an arts-integrated curriculum.
- Oxfam International – alleviation of global poverty
- Students 4 Students – housing for homeless students
- The Prem Rawat Foundation – Peace Education Program, Food For People
- UNICEF – alleviation of malnutrition for children worldwide
- WAFA – Water Air & Food Awards, generating financial support to organizations focused on sustainability worldwide, including: Permaculture – land management and philosophy that adopts arrangements observed in flourishing natural ecosystems, and Sadhana Forest – non profit center geared to reforestation, water conservation & food management.
During the early stages of the creation of the A Call 2Peace concert series (2002), the inspiration to bring things to fruition came from watching a video with a speech by the internationally acclaimed Peace Ambassador Mr. Prem Rawat. During his presentation Mr Rawat mentioned something that resonated very clearly in my moment and many moments since: peace is my responsibility and already exists inside my heart. To complete the inspiration, Prem asked at the end “what can You do”.
It was easy for me to understand that what I can do is music, and music can be utilized as a platform for that simple message about Peace to be shared with the audiences.
For its first chapter, the A Call 2Peace concert series, featuring artists from different parts of the planet and cultures, performed at stages in Tokyo, Japan; Strasbourg, France; Montevideo and Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay; Pepperdine University, Malibu, California; Geneva, Switzerland; Copenhagen, Denmark and Echo Valley Farm, Wisconsin, USA.
The inspiration to start benefiting charity organizations came during the production for the concert in Strasbourg where we invited seven organizations including Oxfam, UNICEF, Handicap International, WAF awards, Être un c’est tout & the Prem Rawat Foundation, to place booths at the lobby of the Mutzig arena to expose their work, give info materials to those interested in their work and raise funds for their efforts.
The second chapter of the Concert Series started in Santa Paula, California, this time with a core group of musicians, featuring Scarlet Rivera, Sonia Kazarova, Federico Ramos, Ron Wagner and Eduardo Del Signore.
From the beginning of this chapter we have focused on performing locally until the arrival of Covid-19 which imposed many and quasi total limitations for live performances.