NOTE: “Today” and “tonight” refer to Friday, April 15.
CARLSBORG — Despite decades of civil war and the widespread prevalence of AIDS, the children of Uganda have retained their optimism through songs of unity.
African Children’s Choir 45 — consisting of 18 Ugandan children ages 7 to 10 — will present these songs of hope at 7 this evening during a free concert at Eastern Hills Community Church, 91 Savannah Lane.
A free will offering will be taken during the performance to support relief efforts in Africa.
African Children’s Choir 45 currently consists of seven girls and 11 boys, said Lydia Sherwood, who provides public relations services for the group.
“The African Children’s Choir melts the hearts of audiences with their charming smiles, beautiful voices and lively African songs and dances,” she said.
“The program features well-loved children’s songs, traditional spirituals and Gospel favorites.”
The choir includes some of the most underprivileged and vulnerable children of Africa, according to charitynavigator.org, and helps them break away from a cycle of poverty and hopelessness by changing their world view and giving the gift of education.
The African Children’s Choir, according to its website, is overseen by Music for Life, a nonprofit organization which has established a number of schools in various African countries, and provides general relief and care in Africa with a focus on children’s programs.
Supports relief efforts
The nonprofit also supports emergency relief efforts to provide destitute children and their families with food, clothing, medical assistance and counseling.
Music for Life operates in Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa.
To date, the nonprofit has educated more than 52,000 children and impacted the lives of more than 100,000 people through its relief and development programs.
Some of the children in the choir have lost one or both parents to violence or disease and would not have otherwise had any chance at a bright future, said Tina Sipp, African Children’s Choir 45 manager.
Ugandans have faced decades of strife and death — either as part of the government’s conflict with the Lord’s Resistance Army or through infection with HIV/AIDS.
Led by self-proclaimed mystic Joseph Kony, the Lord’s Resistance Army is notorious for massacring civilians, slicing off the lips of survivors and kidnapping children for use as soldiers, porters and sex slaves, according to the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The rebel faction has been active since 1986, making it one of Africa’s oldest, most violent and persistent armed groups, according to the U.S. State Department.
The Lord’s Resistance Army was formed in northern Uganda to fight against the government of Uganda, and operated there from 1986 to 2006 when Kony ordered a complete withdrawal.
The rebels moved west into the border region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic and what would later become the Republic of South Sudan.
The rebels have continued to operate in this border region to date.
At the height of the conflict, nearly 2 million people in northern Uganda were displaced, with violence and disease killing 1,000 a week at the height of the conflict.
Lacking public support, the rebels resorted to forcible recruitment to fill its ranks.
A 2006 study funded by UNICEF estimated that at least 66,000 children and youth were abducted by the rebels between 1986 and 2005 for this and other purposes.
HIV/AIDS
Warfare is but one horror faced by the local populous.
According to the most recent reports available through UNAIDS, 1.5 million Ugandans out of an estimated national population of nearly 38 million currently are HIV positive.
Of those who have tested positive for the disease, up to about 170,000 are children ages 14 and younger.
Additionally, up to about 1.5 million have been orphaned by the disease.
A better tomorrow
“Singing and dancing come very naturally to the children,” Sipp said.
“It is a wonderful outlet for them to naturally express themselves. Being a part of the choir gives them an opportunity to hope for the future through receiving an education.”
Directed by Mary Namubiru, herself a former singer with the choir, the group sings “a combination of ethnic praise music as well as a number of English praise songs,” Sipp said.
“They also perform several ethnic dances and many play the African drums.”
Tonight’s performance in Carlsborg is the sixth stop for choir 45, which is just beginning a 10-month tour of the western states, Sipp said.
Choir 44 currently is touring the east coast.
In the past, different iterations of the choir have performed for U.S. presidents, heads of state and most recently the Queen of England for her diamond jubilee.
The choir also has performed alongside artists such as Paul McCartney, Annie Lennox, Keith Urban, Mariah Carey and Michael W. Smith.
For more information, call 360-681-4367 or visit africanchildrenschoir.com.
