Helping Students and Opening Minds: Destiny Africa Choir

One of my recent guest bloggers, Rebecca Weiner, wrote about the importance of exposing children to global and cross-cultural experiences. In my daughters’ school today, the PTO sponsored Destiny Africa, a children’s choir of the Kampala Children Centre in Uganda.  The choir played pulsating drums, danced to the beat and sang with happy hearts for an hour, inspiring the elementary students to join in. Before they began, it was sobering to hear the director’s explanation of the children’s center: all orphans, the children ranged from 10-18 and had lost their parents to illness or rebel fighting. And yet despite such hardship, the children sang of peace, love and happiness. These children are being cared for in a family environment, educated and nurtured to be agents of change. And as such, they have influenced a few hundred more students today in Connecticut.

The concert certainly sparked a serious discussion with my twin 10-year olds. They are old enough to not only know what orphans are, but to understand the devastating concept of not having parents.  They also understand, to a lesser extent, the badness of war and how innocent people are losing their lives in rebel fighting throughout various parts of Africa.

Destiny Africa has become a voice for millions of suffering children in Africa and the world over, a channel that brings healing, joy and hope to a desperate world. They are on tour in the U.S. through Nov. 17, moving from Central Connecticut to Philadelphia before winging their way back to Uganda.

I’m thankful to our PTO for bringing not only the choir to our school — but a little bit of cross-cultural awareness into the hearts and minds of our students who, by and large, are blessed in comparison with many children around the world.