 Peace building involves governments, militaries and non-governmental organizations, but it also requires public support. Everyday people can demand an end to violence and encourage officials to create peace agreements and build democratic societies. Artists and musicians are often the leading voices of public calls for peace, inspiring broad support for ending conflicts. The musician Juanes became a voice of inspiration for the people of Colombia as they sought an end to their country's violent conflict. Here is his story. My name is Juanes. I'm from Colombia. I'm born in Medellin. I'm a musician. Growing up in Colombia was a world of contrast. On one side, all the beauty of our country, all the family, all the love that I received from my family. But at the same time I was in this city, in this environment of losing people, losing families, somebody was kidnapped, somebody was killed. For kids, they lost everything. They lost the family. They lost hope. They lost the dreams. The damage is terrible. You know, it's like huge. It's really terrible. That was the reason why music became so powerful for me to escape and at the same time to express all my feelings, all my fears that I was having at the time as a teenager. That was like the first time I really started to write songs and to think about what was happening around me. I couldn't understand the way we killed each other, you know, and I still don't understand the way, I mean, why we are killing each other. I wrote a song called Fijate Bien. In this song I talk about the landman situation. After this song was released, all different organizations started inviting me to participate in different campaigns. Colombia is one of the most affected countries by land mines and we really need help now. And so I said, well, I'm just a musician, but if I can do something through art to help in any way, I will do it because I want to do that. We were in the middle of this difficult situation between Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador. So the piece without the concert became almost as a crazy idea. We built a stage there right on the border and all people get together from Colombia, from Venezuela, from Ecuador, and it was one of the most beautiful things. We were like seven artists from different countries and we did a concert. We tried to call the attention to the young people, to bring peace as a concept, just to think that peace is something possible if we work all together. Sometimes people ask me, hey, what can I do just to help? And I always say, well, the fact that you know something, you understand something that you have in your heart, that's a good start. The idea for us is just to keep going and pass it on to others' concerts. If it's in La Vana or Venezuela or El Paso, whatever it is, we want to go there, we want to perform, we want to just bring happiness to the music. I just want to be part of this and I want to bring people to the table if I can and just try to help to build a different future for our country.