African Children’s Choir to bring joy to Morris audience

Bringing joy and warmth into the hearts of Morris audiences is the joyful music of the African Children’s Choir which has spent the last three months touring the U.S. and Canada.

“I know I work for the organization and it sounds like I’m puffing us up, but the children are just that precious and they have a spirit about them that just makes people want to be around them…,” said choir manager Tina Sipp. “And to see them so joyful, and so excited, and so generally happy, they love performing… If you have a chance to go to the concert, I hope that you and your friends will go and be blessed by these children for one night. It’s a unique journey.”

The journey of the African Children’s Choir began in the 1970s in Uganda during the civil war. Canadian Ray Bernett was doing work with the local churches and during his work he was asked to give a ride to a boy who lost both his parents. Despite his hardship, the boy sang praise songs all the way so that Bernett was gripped by the resiliency and joy of the boy. In 1984, Bernett formed the first choir and over the past 40 years there have been 50 iterations of the African Children’s Choir touring internationally.

What’s special about the choir, made up of 18 Ugandan children aged nine years old to 11 years old, is that all the money raised during their performances goes directly to the children in Uganda to get an education all the way through university.

“We’ve helped educate over 59,000 children,” said Sipp.

The way the children are chosen for the choir is based on need. The poorest families, who don’t have a chance to educate their children, will see their child chosen to sing in the choir. The members of the choir are educated and boarded at the school set up in the capital city of Kampala in Uganda.

For the first year, the children are educated for the first six months and then the remaining six months they learn the songs and choreography of the tour along with their studies. Each choir tours between three and six months all over the world. After the tour the children continue receiving their education until they graduate from university. Some of the graduates have gone on to become doctors, nurses, teachers, hairdressers, trades people, musicians, and lawyers.

“When the children come to us they don’t know English and they’ve been in the village or impoverished area and they’re speaking (the) native language. Most of our children speak Luganda, which is a common language in and around the capital. And so the educated (Ugandan) people speak English and educationally everything is taught in English. So knowing English is very important for you to be able to succeed and break out of that cycle of poverty,” said Sipp.

Not only does the money raised at their concerts help support the children in the choir but it also supports several hundred children in the day programs of schooling through the choir’s umbrella organization, Music For Life.

While the children are on tour, they stay with host families and get to experience things like a hockey game, riding a Zamboni, swimming in a pool, visiting Disneyland and other childhood treats we take for granted in the West. In 2008, the choir was a guest on American Idol.

For the concert, the children will sing familiar favourite hymns put to African rhythms and there will also be a number of cultural outfits, songs, dances, and drumming.

“It’s very colourful, very bright, super energetic, and good as the program is, I think what people walk away with is how they felt. The children’s spirit is what really comes off that stage. They love the music. They love the dancing. They’re amazed at the professionalism of these children, but at the end of the day people are so touched, that we don’t camp on the challenges that they face back home. Poverty is definitely their backdrop, there’s no hiding that or skirting that…,” said Sipp.

“That doesn’t define these children. They have all the potential in the world to become whatever God wants them to be and they don’t have the opportunity and that’s what we get to give them – we give them opportunity.”

The concert will take place at Emmanuel Baptist Church on April 23 at 7 p.m. There is no charge for the show, but donations are welcome in any denomination. To support a child in the choir, donations are $50 a month and to support a day program child it is $35 a month.