My son’s school hosted a performance by The Pearl of Africa choir on Friday night. The choir are on a fund raising tour to support 3,000 Ugandan orphans and destitute children in eight schools and nine orphanages.
Each choir member comes from a background that we can’t even imagine. Many are orphans to AIDS and malaria. They have been taken in by the Molly and Paul Childcare Foundation, which has given them schooling, food, health care and the hope of a brighter future.
The choir spent all day at the school, teaching the children to sing, dance and drum. Any children who were at the performance were asked to come on stage and show what they had learned by taking part in some of the songs.
My husband asked why the microphones were out of the way and we soon found out. They were loud! Drums beat out and the voices made you quiver. The children were so beautiful. The one song was about women fetching water and the girls balanced pots on their heads. As a finale, one of the girls balanced six pots on her head and danced!! There was such a vibrancy to their singing and dancing. Most of the songs have a religious theme. I have never heard the Lord’s Prayer sung like that before.
I bought a necklace and a Cd. At a previous sale I bought another necklace (jewellery is my weakness) and a wonderfully vibrant tablecloth and which graces my dining room table and brings an energy to the room.
Everyone was emptying their purses and wallets after seeing a video of how the children live – they only get one meal a day if they are lucky. One little boy emptied all of his pocket money into the bucket.
One of the schools supported by the choir is a farm school and they are appealing for chicken sponsors so that the orphans can have one egg a week. £5 supports a chicken for its life and if you send a photograph of yourself with the donation it will be displayed in the hen house. I have visions of the hens cheerfully comparing sponsors!
£15 a month is the average cost of caring for a child at a Molly and Paul school and they are keen to get one off or standing order donations. I was talking to one lady who had supplied pigs for the farm with her workmates and who sponsors four girls. She was telling us about the e-mails she gets from her ‘charges’.
A thoroughly enjoyable evening, but very humbling.
The Choir is in the UK until 17 November and have performances planned in the following areas, Oct 14th - Oct 24th Kidderminster/Ludlow, Oct 24th - Oct 27th Leicester, Oct 28th The Eden Project, Cornwall, Oct 29th - 30th Plymouth, Oct 31st - 8th Nov Cornwall, Nov 10th - Nov 17th London and South East. It is well worth seeing them.
If anyone is interested in donating or sponsoring a chicken or a child, details can be found here.
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