**Our latest news is that we will be collaborating with the amazing STEVIE WONDER's charity 'Better Vision for Children' on this project - see our update in updates section and also an addition at the bottom of this write up for more info!
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- 50% of boys and girls between the ages of 8 and 11 are dieting
- Only 2 % of women think they are beautiful
- The average american person gets exposed to over 200 unrealistic perceptions of body image via advertising per day
- The no1 reason for teen bullying is appearance, and no2 is sexual preference
- 90% of all women want to change at least one aspect of their physical image
Why do so many of us feel pressured to 'BE' a certain way? Why is it so hard to love the things about ourselves that set us apart from the rest? Why do so many of us hold back when it comes to speaking our truth about who we are as individuals?
Who Are We?
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Hellooo! We are Unsung Lilly - a band from the UK and we are passionate not just about making great music but also using our music to do great things in the world.
Last year we released our song 'Just Be', which focuses on the pressure that many people feel from the media/society about the way we all should look/act/BE. When we released the video to the song on YouTube, we were inundated with messages from people who had been inspired by the song, and our video. The video received over 150k hits just in the first week....this was a pretty big deal for us!!
Getting this sort of reaction made us realize that self esteem and self acceptance is a huge subject that affects so many people! Our video for 'Just Be' focused mostly on body image (which is a huge subject in itself) but we realized that people are affected in so many ways - feeling they can't 'be themselves' due to not just their looks, but also sexuality, cultural background, gender, interests, salary...the list could go on forever.
Self-acceptance involves self-understanding, a realistic (albeit subjective) awareness of one's strengths and weaknesses. It results in an individual's feeling about himself that he/she is of "unique worth".
'You Can't base your life on other peoples expectations' - Stevie Wonder
'Don't ever let a soul in the world tell you that you can't be exactly who you are' - Lady Gaga
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Our Plan
When we received so many messages regarding our 'Just Be' video, the majority of them were from the US, so we are planning on touring the USA, visiting schools, corporations, community centers (anywhere that will have us) giving our #JustBeCampaign songwriting workshops!
We will be discussing with each group our own personal struggles with self esteem, self acceptance and why we wrote the song 'Just Be', and then encouraging the group to discuss their own issues and experiences. Together, we will then write a song (with all members of the workshop participating as a group) about the subject, which we will then perform, film and put on YouTube! We hope that this will be a hugely empowering experience for people, whether they are young children, teens or adults, and will be a great way of building confidence!
There are a few stages to this... ideally we'd love to travel across the US to all sorts of places (and the aim is eventually to do this in other countries too!).
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Our first goal is to raise $25k which will fund Sera & Frankie travelling across the West Coast of the USA, giving approximately 20 workshops over a 2 week period in June. This will cover flights, music equipment, accommodation, our videographer, and of course press to raise awareness for the project. We'll also be playing live shows in each area that we visit!
If we hit that, and can raise another $25k, we can then get the whole band involved in the tour which will add a huge amount of depth to the workshops. If we then get up to $70k we will be able to extend the trip for another 2 weeks and also hit the East Coast. Areas that we are targeting will be based on your responses, so please share this with everyone in your city/town and the best responses to our campaign by participation might just bring Unsung Lilly to your city!
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Our Perks
So, the idea is...we need you to help contribute to our campaign, and if you do, you will receive some of our fantastic #JustBeCampaign perks.... Want to tell us your own story about self esteem and have us write a song about it? We'll do it! Fancy a personal video thank you from us to you, posted on your Facebook/Twitter? We can't wait! Or perhaps you just want to wear one of our #JustBeCampaign wrist-bands with pride... We're also going to be adding in extra perks once we've hit $25k which means we will be offering the option for us to come and do a workshop at a place of your choice (your school, workplace or home)- see below!
Also...we're pretty open minded when it comes to new and interesting perk ideas... if you want something, get in touch with us and we'll do the best we can to add it to the list!
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Other Ways You Can Help
We realize that a lot of people are living in hard times at the moment and perhaps can't help financially, but there are plenty of other ways you could help us...
First and foremost - please share this page on your Facebook/Twitter/Blog and help us spread the word as much as possible!! This is imperative to our campaign and we will also promise to love you forever (its true!) - *Don't Forget to always use the #JustBeCampaign
Tell people - you know, in an old fashioned 'speaking to people' offline type manner! ;)
How about doing something real crazy? Maybe take a short video of yourself talking about what we are doing, and pop it on YouTube/twitter etc? (don't forget that hashtag #JustBeCampaign)
We will need street teams based in the US, so if you fancy helping out with flyering and promoting in the areas we are headed to then please let us know (email LillyTeam@GJTunes.com)
If you know any schools, corporations etc who might like to host a workshop, please put them in touch with our management team LillyTeam@GJTunes.com or call 720.733.7700 US
Remember: To the world you may only be one person but to one person you may be the world!
Thank You & We Can’t Wait To Meet You!
Sera & Frankie
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BIG NEWS!
Our big news is that we have just announced we will be collaborating with none other than STEVIE WONDER's charity 'Better Vision For Children', who will be performing free children's visions screenings at each of our California workshops! BVC are a charity for preventing blindness in children, and they tell us that their aim is to test as many young children in the US as possible, because most vision related illnesses are completely curable if detected from an early age. As an addition, we will also be performing at a BVC charity fundraising benefit in California, with other special guests (to be announced!), during the weeks of our workshop tour in June :)
See our
blog here for more details and check out the new related perks we have added!