Peter
Gabriel is a British Grammy-winning singer/ songwriter who gained international
fame as the lead singer in the rock group Genesis, and then with a successful
solo career. He is also well known for producing and promoting world music, and
for his active involvement in many humanitarian campaigns and organizations. Peter
Gabriel's song 'Biko' was the first mainstream pop song to talk about apartheid
in South Africa, and in 1988 he worked with Amnesty International to organize
the Human Rights Now! tour with Bruce Springsteen, Tracy Chapman, Sting and other
artists.
In 1992, Peter Gabriel co-founded WITNESS which supplies human rights activists
with video cameras and other technology to document and help end human rights
abuses. Since then WITNESS has worked with human rights activists in over 50 countries.
On his 89th birthday in July 2007, Nelson Mandela announced that Peter Gabriel
and billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson would be providing the funding to
launch The Elders, an international group of some of the world's leading social
change advocates like Desmond Tutu, Jimmy Carter, Mary Robinson and Muhammad Yunus,
to address the planet's most pressing social issues.
