Raising voices

The African Chidlren's Choir recently performed in Dubai. Alex Westcott meets founder Ray Barnett who, in tandem with the choir's 25th anniversary on September 26, is launching the 12 Million campaign, encouraging us to change the world – one child at a time.

Consider the fact that HIV/Aids will leave 20 million children in Africa without one or both parents by 2010.

Consider that even if by some miracle the spread of HIV/Aids stopped today, the number of orphans would continue to rise for a decade because parents who are already infected will die in the next few years.

But consider this too: in the last 25 years, thousands of children have received hope, education and a future thanks to the award-winning African Children's Choir (ACC) and Music for Life centres with roots in South Africa, Uganda, Kenya, Ghana, Sudan, and Nigeria.

The work of the organisation inspires hope that there could be a solution for Africa's pandemic, but it can only be realised through active involvement at the grassroots level. As they say, the way to move a mountain is to begin by moving one shovel full of dirt at a time. Ray Barnett, founder of Music for Life and the African Children's Choir, follows this mantra. He believes that the way to change Africa is to change its future – the lives of its children – one child at a time.

The beginning

It was early in 1984 and Barnett was on his way to speak at a luncheon in Lebanon when he heard a radio broadcast report that said 125,000 children were starving to death in northern Uganda. It was surprising that such a report had made it to the airwaves because the world media at the time was preoccupied with the massive famine in Ethiopia. The fact that there were other major issues that needed to be highlighted in other parts of Africa was being largely ignored.

Barnett was no stranger to Uganda, having been on a human rights mission there when Idi Amin was in power. As a humanitarian and as a man who had had previous associations with this country, he had more than mere concern over the way things were shaping up there. Not a man to sit on the sidelines, Barnett decided to act immediately. Within days of hearing the broadcast, he was on his way to Uganda with a small team of volunteers to see what could be done.

By the time the team got to Kampala, it found that the German Red Cross was already there and was doing a very effective job. Nevertheless, Barnett met with the then Prime Minister Otema Allimadi to find out more about the situation.

Barnett learned that there were more orphans in the Luwero Triangle [which is about an hour's drive from Kampala] than there were children starving in northern Uganda. Few were willing to help these children because this entailed entering a hot war zone. Allimadi asked Barnett if he could help, to which he replied, "'Well, we don't have those kinds of resources,' and we didn't," explains Barnett. "People even then were saying, is it ever going to stop in Africa? Even then they were talking about fatigue," he adds.

Allimadi considered Barnett's argument for a moment then asked him: "Ray, what do you think should happen?" Barnett had an answer:

"I think that the world needs to see the potential of the African child."

Singing stories

But how do you tell the world Africa's children's stories?

Barnett recounted an incident to Allimadi: "Once while travelling to a village, we gave a ride to a lady and her young son, as she was on her way to visit an aunt in the same village we were heading to. Her little boy sang for us the whole way. My colleague who was a journalist, had a recorder and he recorded the boy's songs. That little boy's singing kept us going for days – we never forgot it."

Even as he was recounting the story, the idea of creating a concept to showcase the potential of the African child slowly began to take shape.

"Instead of just the devastation we need to see the hope," Barnett said. "'But we need something that would encourage people to invest in African children.' I said it off the top of my head at the time and then I stopped and thought... 'well maybe an African children's choir?'"

"Well, there are children here so what's holding you back?" Allimadi immediately countered.

"Can you imagine your diplomat trying to get passports for civil war orphans? Can you imagine trying to get visas to Western countries such as the UK and Canada?" Barnett asked, not without a tinge of irony.

The Prime Minister pondered this for a few moments and then proposed: "I'll get the passports, if you get the visas."

Six months later, in September 1984, the first African Children's Choir [comprising children between the ages of seven and 11] travelled to Vancouver, Canada. What started out as a six-month project has turned into an endeavour spanning 25 years.

The power of music

"Initially we learnt through music,'' says Barnett ('Daddy Ray' to the children).

"At that time I did not know how therapeutic music could be for children. I didn't start with that knowledge. I was merely out to show their potential."

On hindsight, setting up the choir seemed to be the easy part. Barnett realised that there were plenty of other hurdles which he had to surmount before the choir could hit the road. For one, a lot of people challenged him and his team over how the children would be schooled when they are on the road. "What they didn't realise," says Barnett, "was that most of those children weren't schooled anyway because of the ongoing war." In fact, that year, United Press International had dubbed the Luwero Triangle 'the killing fields of Africa,' because up to half a million people had died as a result of the war. School was a luxury very few of the children – predominantly orphans – in the region could afford. But Barnett's team took up the challenge and ensured that the choir was educated while on the road.

At the time, few had heard of an African Children's Choir so getting concerts was an uphill task. "But from the beginning people loved the choir," says Barnett, an unmistakable gleam of pride in his eyes. Word spread after the choir toured Canada and the US, and when they returned they found invitations waiting for them to perform in England. And while in England, they received an invitation to perform in the Netherlands.

The war was reaching its final stages at that point and Barnett was not willing to take the children back to Uganda before it was safe, so, as a precautionary measure, the choir ended up staying on a bit longer in the Netherlands. In the meantime, the money raised was sent back to Uganda to start the first home.

"We never called it an orphanage," says Barnett. "It was a home for children and a school – a place for orphans to heal and grow. The first 31 children to come into that home became the second choir. The children did very well in school and the music proved to be fantastic therapy. Pretty soon the choir was getting more recognition."

Barnett realised that far from being just a choir, it offered hope for a future – a hope which has reaped infinite success stories. "During each concert, the choir leader stops the performance and asks the audience, 'Would you like to know what the children want to be when they grow up?' At this point, the children put up their hands and tell the audience that they want to be doctors, teachers, lawyers... and social workers. All the things that children aspire to be. They begin to believe in themselves and their futures."

To put this into perspective, Barnett relates the story of one particular group of children. "There were three boys and a little girl [in the Luwero triangle] whose parents were killed in the violence. They, however, managed to escape the attack and fled the area. It took them some weeks to reach Kampala [where their aunt lived] because they used to hide during the day and travelled only by night. On the way, the little girl died and the brothers had to bury her and continue on their journey. When they got to Kampala, they couldn't find their aunt. Someone found them and brought them to our first home.

''To be honest, at first, we didn't think we could save them. But we did. Two of them went on tour [not all of the children we took in could go on tour with the choir]. What's more: of the three brothers, today two are specialists in internal medicine and the third is a civil engineer in Kampala.

''Many of those who were on the choir have grown up to become teachers... some have served in the choir and given their time back to helping others. Some have helped build schools. They have gone on to make successes of their lives."

Spreading their wings

At a time when the civil war was raging in southern Sudan, Barnett embarked on another project – setting up schools under trees. The plan included constructing high schools and teacher's colleges. Barnett and his team also became involved in Kibera in Kenya – widely considered to be one of Africa's largest slums – as well as in Somalia and Rwanda.

Over time, the choir experience proved to be having an amazing effect on the children who were affected by the turmoil. "It builds confidence and improves their fluency in the English language. In fact, if there's any problem in Africa, it's because wealthy parents cannot get their children into our education programme," says Barnett.

More recently, the African Children's Choir arrived in South Africa. They set up a house in Simonstown and brought the choir to Cape Town to perform throughout South Africa and in turn show the nation the potential of orphaned children. "While in Simonstown," recalls Barnett, "the commander of the navy invited me for coffee. During our meeting, he showed me a newspaper report about orphans in Nkomazi in Mpumalanga [a South African province].'' There are thousands of HIV/Aids orphans in villages in the area and they were severely affected by the drought, he says.Barnett flew to Nelspruit and managed to get in touch with a few people there who helped him get a better view of the issue.

"It was a different experience to East Africa," says Barnett. "These are very rural villages and although the children weren't famished, they were severely malnourished. As orphans, they were living with either a grandmother or another child in their family.''

One of the problems was paucity of potable water. A water truck supplied water in the area once a week, but not many people had containers to cart the water back home. ''After examining the issue we realised that the first step was to organise wheelbarrows to transport water.

"Under the umbrella of Music For Life (the ACC's parent organisation) we decided to use the principles that we learnt with the choir to work with the Aids orphans. We'd work with them and then follow them back to their homes to meet their families and provide food parcels. Pretty soon, we had another African Children's Choir together. We then brought them to Cape Town where we'd set up a school in Simonstown," says Barnett.

This particular choir achieved some amazing milestones – one of which was to sing at the Live 8 concert that Bob Geldof organised in 2005. These orphans who barely a few weeks earlier had been unheard of in Mpumalanga, were now singing with Mariah Carey. In the finale they performed with Rider Cross, Paul McCartney, Annie Lennox, Sting and many other well known artists. Thanks to the programme which was broadcast all over the world, the choir and more so, the concept, became hugely popular. The children went on to travel to the US where they were invited to perform on American Idol Gives Back with Josh Groban, raising money for Africa.

Pan African vision

Although each choir is broadly based within their own country, Barnett's vision is to have a Pan African choir – one which will bring children from all over Africa under one baton. At the moment, the Kenyan, Rwandan and Ugandan choirs often fall together as one. Barnett says that a major reason for launching the programme in South Africa was to make an entry into countries such as Zimbabwe, Malawi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

There are currently 14 Music for Life Centres in South Africa, Uganda and Kenya. Each centre houses 50 orphans. "There are 8,000 or probably more orphans in Mpumalanga alone," says Barnett. "And this is just in one area of South Africa."

The Music for Life Centres have become a lifeline for many orphans. These centres have all the tools that will bring about the development that the UN talks about, says Barnett.

According to a UN report there are about 12 million Aids orphans in Africa. But to Barnett, an orphan is an orphan, whether he/she is a result of Aids or of war. The 12 million campaign representing the 12 million orphans in Africa will be launched on September 26 to coincide with the ACC's 25th anniversary.

"The choir will travel around the world to raise the profile. We want to challenge people, whether you work with us or not, to go to Africa and work at a ground level with a very specific group of children. We're encouraging active involvement," he says.

"There are youngsters who have worked with us who have gone on to set up homes for orphan babies, built hospitals and schools. We want to channel efforts specifically and encourage every organisation to work on the ground with children that can be identified so that the donors can know who they are."

A mission in motion

The campaign will kick off with a performance by the ACC at Stormont, the parliament building of Northern Ireland and will focus on Kenya, Uganda and South Africa. But it could also see Music For Life expand with sustainable operations into some other areas of Africa, including Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Barnett's hope is that his project will become a worldwide movement. His idea is to personalise the relief work – donors can travel to areas where the ACC has camps, meet with groups of children and become part of their family. This way they get to know where exactly their contributions are going and how it is making a difference in the children's lives.

While the ACC is geared towards Africa, the concept itself can be applied anywhere in the world. The approach is multi-interventionist, which Barnett believes is necessary to tackle both prevention as well as outcomes in communities that have been affected by poverty, war and HIV/Aids."Just think of it," suggests Barnett: "If 12 million African orphans could be reached, it could change not only the course of Africa but the course of history. Very often one looks at tragedies in history and says, 'If I'd been there I'd have helped'.'' This is a chance to do something, he says. ''There are millions of orphans, they are reachable, they're right there! I'd just like to see a very focused effort."

Seeing the vibrant and talented choir from South Africa perform in Dubai held a particular chord for those who have been to – or grew up in – Africa.

More than two decades after a Ugandan child's singing sparked the idea for a global movement, listening to Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika (God Bless Africa in Xhosa) sung by a child whose voice echoes the innocence, courage and vulnerability of this continent's children, carries the choir's message home true. So much so, that one of South Africa's children, now a journalist far from home, had tears rolling silently down her cheeks.

Every life makes a difference.

Every life changed is a victory.

- For more information visit www.12millionorphans.com and www.africanchildrenschoir.com