A popular children’s choir will be bringing a taste of Africa to Red Deer this evening at Family of Faith Church.
The Watoto Children’s Choir will be performing their 60th tour, Beautiful Africa: A New Generation, an evening of vibrant, original African music, dance routines and life-transforming stories. The concert starts at 7 p.m.
“Through the choir’s concert of hope, we share a message of transformation by telling the story of Africa’s rescued orphans and women. We hope to reach out to audiences with the message of Christ’s healing power,” says Gary Skinner, Watoto founder.
Skinner said the choir was born out of his local Ugandan church – Watoto Church – in 1994. He and his family had moved to Uganda in 1980 to plant a church and try to help the people of a nation wracked by poverty and violence. In 1994, Skinner and his wife Marilyn founded Watoto Child Care Ministries, an international organization as a response to the cry of Africa’s millions of children orphaned as a result of HIV/AIDS.
Currently they are caring for over 2,600 Ugandan children in Watoto villages where every child is raised in a family setting rather than an institution.
Their vision is that these children will be raised to become future leaders of Uganda and Africa.
Via the choir, audiences enjoy exotic African rhythms and harmonies accented by brilliant Ugandan costume and inspirational stories.
The group has traveled internationally since 1994 as ambassadors for the millions of children in Africa, orphaned as a result of HIV/AIDS, war and poverty. Each of the children in the choir has suffered the loss of one or both parents. They live in Watoto Children’s Villages where they receive the care and nurture they need to grow up as productive citizens of their country.
Since its inception, 55 choirs have traveled globally, providing the children with a bigger worldview, an unusual opportunity they would otherwise never get. The choirs have been to Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Europe, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan and USA, among others.
Watoto means ‘the children’ in Swahili.
For more information, check out www.watoto.com.
-Weber
