Resources

Do please let us know if you have sug­ges­tions for oth­er web­sites we should link to!

Info for organisers

Doc­u­ments help­ful for organ­is­ers of events
Event coor­di­na­tors checklist

  • Visu­al infor­ma­tion and dis­play – like the lanterns, also posters / oth­er dec­o­ra­tions / placards
  • Vig­ils – in pub­lic or pri­vate, with or with­out fasting
  • Pri­vate or pub­lic per­for­mances – of poet­ry / read­ings / songs
  • Vir­tu­al talks and work­shops – in par­tic­u­lar those held local­ly e.g. see the links above to Edin­burgh Peace and Jus­tice Cen­tre and Scot­tish CND
  • Craft work – make peace cranes / lanterns / badges / banners

What­ev­er you choose to do, take a pic­ture and ampli­fy the impact by shar­ing on social media and send it to Chris Pear­son for the website.

Other issues

This web­site has a huge bank of infor­ma­tion about non­vi­o­lent strug­gles from all over the world. They are cat­e­gorised in var­i­ous help­ful ways and eval­u­at­ed accord­ing to suc­cess cri­te­ria. Plen­ty of inspi­ra­tion here!

Campaigns we support

Black Lives Matter

Campaign Against Arms Trade

Climate crisis

Conscientious Objectors’ Day

International Workers’ Memorial Day and May Day

Justice4Grenfell

Nuclear disarmament

Palestine solidarity and support for Gaza

Support for refugees and asylum seekers

Support for the victims of the 1984 Bhopal disaster

Links to external songbanks

  • Anti­war songs
    A col­lec­tion of over 3000 paci­fist and anti­mil­i­tarist songs from all over the world and of any time, based on free con­tri­bu­tions by read­ers and col­lab­o­ra­tors (com­men­tary large­ly in Italian). 
  • Quak­er­song
    Web­site of Annie Pat­ter­son and Peter Blood, cre­ators of Rise Up Singing, North America’s favorite group singing songbook. 
  • Reclaim­ing Chants @ Weave and Spin
    Lyrics to chants from the Reclaim­ing pagan activist com­mu­ni­ty, co-found­ed by Starhawk. 
  • Sing Out!
    Mag­a­zine and resource cen­tre devot­ed to (main­ly north Amer­i­can) folk song. 
  • Songs for Envi­ron­men­tal Education
    Envi­ron­men­tal songs! Envi­ron­men­tal music! Nature songs! Earth songs! 
  • Songs for the Great Turning
    Songs which can be used in the inter­ac­tive group process­es devel­oped by Joan­na Macy known as the Work That Recon­nects, which facil­i­tates, a shift toward a life-enhanc­ing human pres­ence on plan­et Earth. 
  • Union Songs
    Rebel songs, slave songs, songs of free­dom, work songs, songs of dis­sent, songs of strug­gle, protest songs. They are the work of famous poets as well as men and women whose names have been forgotten. 

Other political/community choirs and singing groups

  • Big Big Sing
  • Calder Val­ley Voices
    World music songs, with social sen­si­bil­i­ties. Gospel, African, East European. 
  • Chechele World Music Choir
    York-based acapel­la choir spe­cial­is­ing in singing tra­di­tion­al music from around the world. 
  • Côr Cochion Caerdydd
    (Cardiff Reds’ Choir) came togeth­er in 1983, when events in Chile, South Africa, and at home in Wales demand­ed that they use their voic­es in protest. 
  • Côr Gob­aith
    Aberys­t­wyth street choir, singing and cam­paign­ing for peace and social and envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice near and far since 2006. 
  • Har­monise
    Edin­burgh-based choir. 
  • Joy­ous Choir
  • Lon­don Gay Men’s Chorus
    “Well worth Com­ing Out for.” 
  • Loud and Proud
    Edinburgh’s LGBT Choir. It pro­vides a won­der­ful oppor­tu­ni­ty for les­bian, gay, bisex­u­al and trans­gen­der peo­ple and their friends to sing and socialise together. 
  • Nation­al Street Choir Festival
    (for­mer­ly the Street Music Festival) 
  • Not­ting­ham Clar­i­on Choir
    Formed in 1988 as a result of a project of local musi­cians to make the vinyl album Eng­lish Rebels, cel­e­brat­ing the rad­i­cal tra­di­tions in British politics. 
  • Open Com­mu­ni­ty Singing Group
    Edin­burgh-based singing group led by Pen­ny Stone. Meets week­ly on Thurs­days from 18.30–20.30 at Eric Lid­dell Cen­tre on Morn­ing­side Road. 
  • Out Aloud, Sheffield’s Gay Choir
    Out Aloud is Sheffield’s Gay Choir. It was formed in 2006 and enables les­bians, gay men, bisex­u­al and trans­gen­dered peo­ple in Sheffield to enjoy singing as a com­mu­ni­ty. There are no audi­tions and you don’t need to be an expe­ri­enced singer or read music. 
  • PiH Glas­gow
  • Pink Singers
    London’s Les­bian and Gay Com­mu­ni­ty Chorus. 
  • https://www.portobellocommunitychoir.org/
  • Raised Voic­es
    Lon­don-based polit­i­cal choir of women and men. 
  • San Ghan­ny
  • Sangschule
    Tra­di­tion­al song group based in Lin­lith­gow, West Loth­i­an. They wel­come any­body who enjoys singing with oth­ers and who is inter­est­ed in learn­ing more about the Scot­tish musi­cal tradition. 
  • Sea Green Singers
    an Oxford-based singing group of free­dom and green songs. (The group is named after the colour of the rib­bons worn by the Lev­ellers, a rad­i­cal move­ment with­in Cromwell’s Mod­el Army.) 
  • Sheffield Social­ist Choir
    With 60–80 mem­bers, they learn and sing songs which reflect the fight for free­dom, human rights and jus­tice around the world. 
  • Songtribe
  • Song­works
    A com­mu­ni­ty of singers who meet week­ly to sing for the sheer joy of it. They meet at the Colum­cille Cen­tre, Morn­ing­side, Edinburgh 
  • Straw­ber­ry Thieves
    Polit­i­cal choir based in South-east Lon­don. Their site has words, sheet music and midi files for many of their songs. 
  • Tad­ha­mon
  • Wild­fire
    Edin­burgh-based group, open to women of all ages and back­grounds who like or want to learn to sing in a col­lec­tive group. They sing polit­i­cal songs, songs of strug­gle, peace and free­dom as well as Scot­tish tra­di­tion­al mate­r­i­al. Demo­c­ra­t­ic deci­sion making. 

Musicians, singers and songwriters

Other useful organisations

  • Nat­ur­al Voice Network
    We believe that singing is everyone’s birthright and we are com­mit­ted to teach­ing styles that are accept­ing and inclu­sive of all, regard­less of musi­cal expe­ri­ence and ability. 
  • Polit­i­cal Song Collection
    Based at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Glas­gow: “a major col­lec­tion of mate­ri­als relat­ing to polit­i­cal song and songs of social jus­tice. The col­lec­tion com­pris­es print, man­u­script, and audio­vi­su­al media, dat­ing from the 18th cen­tu­ry to the present day.” 
  • WRPM (Women’s Rev­o­lu­tions Per Minute)
    Has sup­plied music per­formed, com­posed and pro­duced by women since 1977. WRPM sup­ports Inde­pen­dent Women Musi­cians and their cat­a­logue includes record­ings by many hard-to-find artists, includ­ing Hol­ly Near, Judy Small and Sweet Hon­ey in The Rock. 
  • Cam­paign Choirs Network
    A loose affil­i­a­tion of like-mind­ed choirs across the UK shar­ing a belief in a bet­ter world for all and ded­i­cat­ed to tak­ing action by singing about it!