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It all started at the Italian National Conference of 1988, many of us were actively involved for many years with music or arts in general (some of the members were members of the theatrical group "Il risveglio"), so some members of the institutions suggested us to put our talents together and form a real musical group, something organized.

The first step was to inform who might have been interested, and in few weeks there was a group of more than 30 people who singed up who met first in Perugia and performed for he Bahá'i community after which they headed for the Winter school in Rimini.

The first phases of the group was mostly to prepare musically, so to provide a proper performance as wherever we were going we were representative the Faith.

1989, was the year were the group introduced itself internationally at the European Youth conference of San Marino. After the conference the headed to Portici in the south of Italy. Portici had been for long time a goal city for the Italian community, and is the most densely populated city in Europe. Hundreds of travel teachers had been there previously and have planted seeds there through their sacrifice. But it was that summer that all the seed bloomed. A combination of youth, music and joy, brought to the starting of entry by troops.  The National assembly in it's periodical letter to be Italian communities that summer wrote (to read the whole letter, in Italian, click here) wrote:

"....it looks that we've found the key to enter the hearts of the population of Portici. The musical group Light in the Darkness in the last days has been there for the past weeks and larger and larger groups of people are coming every evening to the centre...."

since then, Portici had always a special part in the heart of the group ands the group visited in several occasions in the following years.

In 1990 the group took part in its first summer tour, in collaboration with the European Youth Council organized the first of many trips to Slovenia and Croatia, to establish the embryonic community there. This was the first time that Bahá'i youth were visiting Slovenia. During our stay in Bari in preparation for the through, the group went through one of its most difficult moments, some drunk men attacked the group in an evening and one of the members, Olinga Mazlum, had to have 6 stitches on his left eyebrow., This did not undermine the group's determination and the group headed on to the activity in Campobasso, the first step of the tour.

Ljubljana and Croatia were magic moments, the response from the public was amazing and when the group left Ljubljana and Zagreb, the first bunch of devoted souls was established. Since then the group visited in other activities Slovenia and Croatia. And in 1994 they were invited to participate to the establishment of the Regional Spiritual Assembly of the Bahái's of Slovenia and Croatia (to read the letter click here). 

The group went on doing activities in many cities in Italy and the 1991's tour brought the group further north in Europe, visiting Poland and Romania, were participated to the First Bahá'i Youth Conference of the ex-eastern block. In one thrilling evening concert, after a whole day of activity were different musical groups were around the beach to invite people for that night's concert, and after an inspiring invitation from Sohrab Youssefian, hundreds of people joined the ranks of the faith. The year went on with many other activities in Italy and at the end of that years the group recorded it's first album.

1992 the summer tour brought the group to other Eastern European countries, Hungary, Czech Rep. and Slovakia and Albania, were hundred of people were enrolling. At the end of the year the group was invited to perform in the Youth Forum of the Second Bahá'i world Congress in New York. See video here.

1993 brought some changed in the group, many members left the group and some new friends joined the group. The group continued to perform in many activities in Italy and returned again to Slovenia and Croatia. The summer tour started in Albania and ended in Romania and on it's tour there was the pilgrimage to the holy sites in Turkey.

1994 The year started with activities in various cities in Italy. In summer the group participated to the Shape Europe conference in Berlin and there performed the same with the homonymous name that they wrote. After the conference the group departed for their sixth summer tour who brought all the way up to the Baltic states. 

1995 The "new" group started with many meetings of rehearsal and deepening and participated to various activities in Parma, Voghera, Portoferraio, Bologna and in summer they organized their last summer tour who brought them to Slovenia, Lithuania. In the month of December the group unanimously decided to stop their operations

In 1996 though, there was a final revival, as they were requested to represent the International Bahá'i community in the United Nations Habitat !! conference in Istanbul, Turkey; so Vargha Mazlum contacted some old members of the group and all together they left for Turkey were they also participated to activities in other cities in Turkey and visited once more the holy places. For their endeavour at the UN conference they received a certificate of appreciation for the organizing committee that you can see below:

Some other special moments

The International Archives The International Archives in Haifa requested copies of the two albums the group produced to keep in the archives

 

Hands of the Cause The group had the honor to perform in front of the hands of the Cause Amatul'Bahá Ruhiyyih Khánum and Ali Aqbar Varqá

 

The Universal House of Justice The Universal House of Justice, assured the group of it's prayers at the holy shrines in occasion of the tours of 1992 and 1994

 

King of Samoa In occasion of a private visit, His Highness Malietoa Tanumafili II, king of Western Samoa, has received the CD of the group

 

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