Rome mayor has extended a most unusual invitation to Romans, calling on them to open their windows or step out onto their balconies for a singsong.

The mayor’s rally cry is far removed from her normal announcements regarding transport and trash collection but then again we are living in extraordinary times.
The country is in total shutdown, with 60 million people indoors, in a drastic attempt not to catch or spread the dreaded Coronavirus.

Raggi is echoing the calls of other towns and cities up and down Italy whose residents have begun impromptu singalongs, flashmobs, musical performances, even dancing, from their windows.
Raggi’s invitation, open to everyone living in Rome, comes the day after she hung a home-made banner from her office balcony in the city hall. The message read “Andrà tutto bene” which means “Everything will be all right.”

The movement began a few weeks ago in Milan, the capital of Lombardy, the northern Italian region left reeling from the deadly grip of the virus.

Milanese citizens began to leave post-it notes with the words Andrà tutto bene on random doors and shopfronts, a happy antidote to fear and death.