Invoking John Lennon, UN Imagines a Better World for Children

The “Imagine” project is an app for mobile devices allowing users to join international music stars singing the classic John Lennon song that has become an anthem of peace and tolerance.

Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, gave Unicef the rights to use the song and all funds raised by the project will be channeled to programs providing education, health care, protection, vaccines, drinking water and emergency assistance to children in more than 150 countries and territories.

Children and international artists joined ambassadors and official to sing “Imagine.”

Ono urged everyone in the world to “think peace, act peace, give peace and imagine peace.”

Among stars on the stage were Australian actor Hugh Jackman, and Brazilian singer Daniela Mercury who got everyone dancing.

The future of humankind depends on children, Mercury told Efe, citing as an example the process of colonization in Brazil and the Jesuits’ focus on new generations.

“They changed the indigenous people’s minds with music and through the children,” she said. “They, the children are the path to change everything, and we must always keep them as mirrors, because they are an example to remind us how to live together and in peace.”

“Children have no prejudices, they connect quickly, they look and play together with open hearts,” Mercury said.

Other stars bringing emotion to the United Nations were Benin’s Angelique Kidjo, and Sweden’s Laleh who sang a personal version of “Chiquita,” the song fellow Swedes ABBA performed on the same stage in 1979, the International Year of Children.

The mobile app launched by UNICEF aims to create “the largest ever global sing-along.”