Santiago, Chile – Greenpeace Andino, along with MODATIMA Women, MODATIMA La Ligua, the Sibelius Music Academy of Finland, artistic community center Cecrea and La Ligua Museum, created the song “Caudal de Resistencia”, which translates to the Flow of Resistance, an intercultural project that reflects on the water crisis in Chile. The lack of access to water affects one million people in Chile, with no guarantee of its use despite being the only country in the world to constitutionally recognise the private right to water.
Jao Matos Lopes, percussionist of the Sibelius Academy of Finland:
“When you go out and observe the absence of water, look into the dry ground and the leafless trees, it is very shocking. To express this experience in a common and creative way, it makes me feel very humble, being able to communicate through music as a way of fight and hope.”
In Petorca, a town 151 km north away from Santiago, a collection of artists, environmentalists from Finland, Portugal, Estonia and Colombia along with the local community sought to answer the question of how to make the drought known; how to listen to earth and to the rivers that no longer exist to create a fusion of pop music with a strong presence of folkloric roots.The sound of charangos -an instrument similar to the Andean guitar- and violins intertwine different styles with a mixture of urban resources and rap-protest soundscapes.
Estefanía González, Campaign Coordinator of Greenpeace:
“We deliver this song with the certainty that these types of initiatives give value to art in the activism and collaboration between different cultures and countries. To amplify the voices of the movement for the recovery and protection of water, created and sung by the same people that suffer the problem of water shortage in a single action.”
“This song is born in a reality in which Chile is currently the only country in the world that establishes private ownership of water on a constitutional scale; this has not allowed the implementation of effective solutions regarding the water crisis that today affects millions of people. In the current constitution there is no guarantee of the human right to water, nor the protection of hydrological cycles, nor the prioritization of uses. Ownership of water is only consecrated in a context in which only 2% of the total water in the country is used for human consumption of drinking water and the remaining 98% for large productive activities. That is why it is essential that people listen to this collective call and that they go to vote”.
ENDS
Images: Greenpeace Andino Media Library
Contact:
Melissa Jure, Head of Press, Chile [email protected]
Rolf Holzmann, Head of Communications, Andino, [email protected]
Greenpeace International Press Desk, [email protected], +31 20 718 2470 (24 hours)
