YFU Anthem across the world
We are happy to present the song that has won the YFU Anthem contest held in honour of the YFU 70th Anniversary.
During the year-long celebration, YFU Anniversary Celebration Team (ACT) has invited YFUers and musicians to create a song, a global anthem, that would unite all YFU organisations and inspire us for the next 70 years and more, no matter where we are in the world or what language we speak!
ACT team has received three wonderful submissions from France, Sweden and Indonesia. All of them were made with love and expressed the YFU spirit and our values. The ACT team sends a heartfelt “Thank you” to the authors (French and Swedish volunteers and Alfath Flemmo Maulasufa) for their contributions.
As much as we would have liked to keep all three songs, this time there was a need for a winner that could become the uniting song across the world. The voting from YFU organisations and the ACT has now been counted and the winner is the song “ This is YFU!”
The authors come from Sweden. They present themselves as a group of YFU friends. “We are host families, volunteers and former exchange students and with this song, we wanted to express our gratitude for what YFU has given us and help spread the YFU fever in the world.
The Swedish people sing for every occasion and YFU has taught us the importance of creating ties and working as a team. This song, like YFU, is not created by one person but by all of us together! It symbolises our organisation. The chorus is a call to join YFU and that together we will succeed to create a better world. The first verse highlights the family feeling of YFU. Our differences aren’t important, we all work hand in hand. The second puts the spotlight on all our host families. Opening their homes, creating ties and growing together with their students. The third states that all of this is possible thanks to the work of all the fantastic YFU volunteers and staff!"
The lyrics are based on “Oh Susanne”, a traditional American folk song by Stephen Foster from 1848.
Now the next step is in your hands - help your local YFU organisation to recreate this song in local languages! Reach out to them with your proposition on how to express these feelings in your language.
Below you can download notes of the song and The ACT team profoundly believes that for a better and more peaceful future it is important to create bridges across the world and that this song can do that. Join us and help us to make sure that the YFU song “This is YFU” becomes part of our volunteer meetings, student orientations, informal events, uniting YFUers all around the world, no matter the language we speak.
Live long and prosper, YFU!
