Paste Premiere: The Voice Project

Thanks to the work of organizations like Invisible Children, the plight of the people of Uganda has been well-publicized in recent years. For those who don’t know the story, it goes a little something like this: a man named Joseph Kony has for years been responsible for the abducting of children, drafting them into his LRA and forcing them to fight in Africa’s longest-running conflict; they are sometimes required to kill friends, family members and neighbors. Soldiers who escape from the LRA often take cover in the bush, too ashamed of what they’ve done to return to their homes. In an effort to bring home the men living in self-imposed exile, the women of Northern Uganda have begun singing songs of peace, welcoming and forgiveness, which are passed by radio and word of mouth out to the bush. And, as a result, the soldiers are finally beginning to come home.

The Voice Project “is an attempt to support these incredible women and the peace movement in Uganda, and an effort to see how far a voice can carry.” It seeks to amplify the voices of the women of Northern Uganda by joining them, asking artists to cover one of their favorite songs by someone else to pass the message of peace and solidarity along. Paste is proud to premiere The Voice Project’s first video, in which Brett Dennen covers Citizen Cope’s “Healing Hands.”

Watch Brett Dennen perform “Healing Hands.”

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