African Children`s Choir at Staller Center

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African Children’s Choir
Gospel City.com
February, 25 2008
African Children’s Concert: A Stirring Experience
By EM FERGUSSON
The African Children’s Choir recently performed at the Robert Ferst Center in Atlanta, Georgia. The
performance is part of the choir‟s exciting fall tour titled, “Journey of Hope.” The children began touring
October 12, 2007 and will continue to tour throughout the spring. Recently seen on various television
shows including, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, American Idol and Good Morning America, the African
Children’s Choir stirred the hearts of all who attended the concert.
Performances included stories of strength and survival, tales of hope and various ballads that celebrate the
people, culture and joy of Africa. Comprised of children from Rwanda, Ghana, Nigeria, the Sudan,
Kenya, Somalia, and South Africa, the African Children’s Choir and its parent organization Music for
Life, help support almost 8,000 underprivileged children. From the “Lost Boys” of the Sudan to
supporting centers for AIDS orphans in South Africa, the members of the African Children’s Choir are
making a positive impact for their communities.
The program opened with an Acholi Dance from the Acholi Tribe, followed by colorful, bright and
contemplative dances and acts reflecting the Baganda tribe. The acts included the ‘Fishing Song,’
‘Hunting Song,’ and ‘Harvest Song.’ All songs share powerful stories of survival and determination. In
the ‘Fishing Song,’ according to program notes provided during the concert, the story involves, “a group
of fishermen on Lake Victoria have a close encounter with a crocodile as they pull in their daily
catch…the leader assures them that all is well and they sail ashore to safety.”
The choir continued to dance, sing and act out stories of courage and love. Before intermission, the
“dance tutorial” included the Kiganda, Rwandan, Bandi Minya Soya Maci-Lingala, Ding Dong and Ujesu
Tiathoma dances from South Africa, the Congo and Rwanda. Once again, each song is a story of strength
and compassion. For the past 23 years, the African Children’s Choir has performed around the world, in
attempts to raise awareness of the plight of the orphaned and abandoned. As the choir members
performed, their stories and that of so many other children was showcased on a large, circular screen
above the stage. Images included African children in various countries, members of the choir on tour,
scenes of Africa‟s rich landscape and much more. With each image, the songs and dance completed the
stories that were shared.
Following the intermission, the song, Homeland was sung by the choir. An original piece from the
musical, Prince Of Africa, this song was especially written for the choir and was performed twice during
the concert. The choir ended their repertoire with a gospel rendition of This Little Light of Mine, while
flags of all African countries hung at the back of the stage.
Three former members of the choir shared their experiences of touring with the choir when they were
younger. They spoke of how touring around the world and the education they were provided with, made
an impact on their lives. Today, they work in their countries as professionals (one works as a journalist,
N E W Y O RK | L OS A N G E LE S
African Childrens’ Choir
Gospel City .com ∙ February 25, 2008
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the other a lawyer and the last member as an accountant). Their positive stories began with the vision of
one man who has continued to work tirelessly to bring hope and a brighter future for Africa‟s children.
Ray Barnett worked as a human rights activist during the early 1980s and it was on a trip to Uganda that
he was inspired to do something for the thousands of orphans starving to death.
“I thought, „If we could take a group of these beautiful children to the West, that would surely raise
money to help their country,‟” recalls Ray.
Today, the “Journey of Hope” tour is hoping to raise $1.1 million by the first quarter of 2008. The goal is
to create a bigger African Children’s Choir (ACC) Academy in order to meet the growing demands of
children needing a place to receive a quality education. The ACC Academy will serve 400 children and
will include a school, living quarters, athletic fields and much more. Currently, the organization has been
providing education in a five-story building originally built to serve 50 children. However, the residence
now houses 100 children and is forced to turn hundreds away. With the realization that quality education
is rare within Uganda, it is the organization‟s mission to provide an educational facility to realize the
dream of helping Africa‟s most vulnerable population.
The first African Children’s Choir began touring in 1984 and each year, a new set of eager, talented and
bright young children tour the world to share their stories.
For information on supporting the children of the African Children’s Choir, visit
www.africanchildrenschoir.com or call the offices at 1-877-532-8651.
The choir may be coming to a city near you!
ACC Tour Schedule
2/24/08
2/26/08
2/28/08
3/1/08
3/26/08
4/1/08
4/4/08
4/5/08
4/6/08
4/8/08
4/10/08
4/12/08
4/13/08
4/15/08
4/17/08
4/20/08
4/22/08
Houston, TX
Longview, TX
Bryan, TX
Kerrville, TX
Danville, KY
Lee‟s Summit, MO
Decatur, IL
University Park, IL
Grayslake, IL
Eau Claire, WI
Appleton, WI
East Lansing, MI
Detroit, MI
Whitewater, WI
Wausau, WI
Platteville, WI
Madison, WI
The Alice & George Brown Theatre
S.E. Blecher Jr. Chapel Performing Center
Children‟s Museum of the Brazos Valley
Cailloux Center for the Performing Arts
Norton Center at Centre College – Newlin Hall
The Pavillion
Kirkland Fine Arts Center – Millikin University
Center For Performing Arts
James Lumber College for the Performing Arts
Zorn Arena – UW Eau Claire
Fox Cities Performing Arts Center
Wharton Center for Performing Arts
Orchestra Hall at Max. M Fischer Music Center
Irvin L. Young Auditorium
Grand Theater on ARTSblock
Center for the Arts Concert Hall
Overture Center for the Arts
For further information on the choir and its tour dates, visit www.africanchildrenschoir.com
African Children’s Choir
Newsday  November 2, 2007
African Children's Choir at Staller Center
BY ROBERT KAHN | [email protected]
November 2, 2007
At age 9, Elsa Mugyenzi lived in Uganda with her father and three sisters. Her mother had been slain at the hands of Idi
Amin's army, poverty kept her from attending school and her father had difficulty providing food.
A Canadian human rights worker, in the country to write a book about the tyrannical regime, had come up with the idea
of organizing a choir of orphans to sing in Europe and North America, to bolster awareness of the nation's 150,000
parentless children.
Mugyenzi was among hundreds from a local church to audition, and was one of 30 chosen for what would become the
African Children's Choir, a touring ensemble that was intended as a one-time undertaking.
Today, some 23 years later, Mugyenzi travels with the group as choir manager. On Sunday, she escorts 22 children to
Staller Center at Stony Brook University for a two-hour performance.
"I don't know where I'd be today if I hadn't found the choir," Mugyenzi said by phone recently from Virginia, where the
choir also known as the ACC stopped on its "Journey of Hope" tour.
Ray Barnett, an activist who had worked in Russia, the Middle East and Africa, had visited Uganda in 1984, where the
country's prime minister alerted him to the hundreds of thousands of orphans in the Luwero Triangle, dubbed "the
killing fields of Africa."
At that time, Band Aid was already in progress on behalf of children in Ethiopia. Barnett heard a Ugandan boy singing,
and the idea of a different kind of choir was born. "We realized that good could come out of showing the world the
hope that the African child represented," Barnett said.
By that September, the first choir, including Mugyenzi, was on the ground performing. Now, there are often two or
three ensembles traveling the globe, some featuring children as young as 7. Members of the group coming to Stony
Brook are ages 10 to 12.
The ACC tours throughout the world performing a mix of popular, gospel and contemporary song and dance from
Africa accompanied by ethnic instruments.
Their repertoire on this trip includes examples of hunting and harvest songs, and a piece called "Runyege Dance,"
which originates from the western part of Uganda and is performed during the "courtship season."
Each year, a new choir is selected and the children from the previous year return home to attend school. Like
African Children’s Choir
Newsday  November 2, 2007
page 2 of 2
Mugyenzi, most participants have lost one or both parents because of war, famine or disease.
Since its inception, the choir has expanded its operations to serve children and families in Rwanda, Ghana, Nigeria, the
Sudan, Kenya, Somalia and South Africa. This year, the choir sang at Carnegie Hall for the Clinton Global Citizen
Awards ceremony, and has appeared on numerous news and talk shows - and twice on "American Idol."
The ACC's relief efforts support about 8,000 children and include funding for schools for the "Lost Boys" of Sudan and
support centers for AIDS orphans in South Africa, as well as university sponsorship programs for former members.
Mugyenzi was the beneficiary of one of those university programs. After 15 months, she returned home to Uganda,
where the choir paid for her education at the country's largest college.
Mugyenzi has seen the latest young group experience America for the first time, tasting "unusual" foods, singing for
First Lady Laura Bush and visiting Disneyland.
"They get to do all kinds of fun things like that, but they also know that their education is going to be paid for,"
Mugyenzi said. "They know they're fortunate to have a future."
WHEN&WHERE: The African Children's Choir "Journey of Hope" tour, 3p.m. Sunday at Staller Center, Stony
Brook University, Nicolls Road. Tickets: $10. The two-hour show is recommended for children 8 and older. Call 631632-2787, or staller center.com/0708/acc.html.
Copyright © 2007, Newsday Inc.
African Children’s Choir
Manchester Journal  October 26, 2007
Making music trump tragedy
By Andrew McKeever
Andrew McKeever photo
At a performance Tuesday morning at Long Trail School, the African Children's Choir, a group of children who have
lost their parents to disease and famine, performed for a group of local students. The group, on a visit here sponsored
by Northshire Performing Arts, made several local stops, concluding with a performance Wednesday at the First
Congregational Church.
DORSET - Robert Seruyange doesn't know how old he was when his parents died, victims of a whirlwind of violence
that swept through his native country of Uganda in the early 1980s. He thinks he might have been 1 year-old, maybe 2.
He's not sure.
But he was one of the lucky ones as it turned out. He found his way eventually to membership one of the touring
groups of the African Children's Choir, which is made up exclusively of children from all parts of Africa who have lost
one or both parents to one of the several scourges that have ravaged the continent over the past two decades. Many of
them were orphaned because of epidemic outbreaks of AIDS, or famine or civil war.
Now an accountant, Seruyange, who toured with one of the choir's groups in 1991-2, is back on the road traveling with
one of the choir's touring groups as a chaperone.
"I look at this whole thing as being something that brings hope to people who never had hope," he said. "Being in the
choir and being able to show the world as a kid my potential led to the job I have."
The choir is the leading edge of a charitable organization known as the Music for Life Institute that establishes schools
and provides education for thousands of children who would have had to do without otherwise. The choir's
performances are a key to their fundraising efforts. One of their touring groups, composed of 12 girls and 10 boys, all
between the ages of 7-to-11 years of age, touched down in the Northshire for two days of performing Tuesday and
Wednesday.
African Children’s Choir
Manchester Journal October 26, 2007
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The group was brought to the area as part of the educational outreach program of Northshire Performing Arts, which
has hosted major concert performances locally by internationally recognized musicians such as the classical violinist
Midori, pianist Ingrid Fliter, the Vienna Boys Choir and opera tenor Salvatore Licitra. But with the African Children's
Choir, the emphasis was on bringing a different cultural experience to area school children, said Susan Weiss, a vice
president of the organization.
"Part of our mission is to provide cultural programming for kids in our area from kindergarten through high school,"
she said. "This was something we thought would be really unique for this area and the students - it's something they
don't usually come in contact with in this area."
The choir gave two performances at two local schools sandwiched around a joint singing session with chorus groups
from several area schools on Tuesday and Wednesday, concluding with a free public concert Wednesday night at the
First Congregational Church, again sponsored by Northshire Performing Arts.
At the Long Trail School Tuesday morning, an hour-long performance for students from The Dorset School, Long Trail
School and the Mettowee School revealed not only the variety and rhythmic complexity of traditional African music,
but also how much that influenced American music as well.
In the call-and-response structure of the song and dance pieces the children's choir performed, the influences of
everything from gospel to soul, rhythm and blues and even rap and hip-hop was plainly evident.
The pieces they performed depicted traditional African culture - hunting and fishing, bringing in a season's harvest, a
pre-wedding celebration. Each African region's dances and music, though outwardly similar, were in fact distinct and
unique, explained one of the chaperones in between two of the pieces.
With four percussionists providing a steady rhythmic underpinning, the other performers, a blur of colorful costumes
punctuated by the occasional spear carrier and dragon mask, held the rapt attention of their audience. The excitement
and upbeat singing and dancing make it easy to forget the grim circumstances all of the performers hail from.
The African Children's Choir was formed in 1984. A few years earlier, Ray Barnett, a Canadian human rights activist,
made a visit to Uganda during the dictatorial reign of the former self-proclaimed "President for Life," Idi Amin,
perhaps better known to contemporary American audiences as the leading character of last year's Oscar winning movie
"The Last King of Scotland." The country was in disarray, but it wasn't until several years later when a randomly heard
news report, indicating that more than 150,000 Ugandan orphans were in danger of starving to death there, compelled
him to try do something to avert that catastrophe, according to the organization's Web site.
Following the fall of Amin in 1979, Uganda descended into civil war with the government and an opposing warlord-led
faction contending for control. That struggle, barely reported in the western media and obscured by the equally tragic
situation enveloping the neighboring nation of Sudan, is still underway. Meanwhile the twin scourges of AIDS and
famine have decimated villages and families.
Barnett established the first children's choir in 1984, and its performances were immediately successful at not only
raising money, but attracting attention towards the plight of not only the children of Uganda but the entire continent.
Several schools and numerous aid projects have followed since.
Local family involved
One local family - the Miduras of Sunderland - spent 16 days in Uganda this summer following a fundraising effort
targeted towards building an orphanage. The situation there remains very difficult, said Patti Midura.
"Some people have lived in refugee camps for 20 years," she said. "There's quasi-peace but you don't travel after dark."
The impact on children has been severe. Many orphans never come close to finishing even a minimal amount of formal
education, a problem compounded by schools where the student-teacher ratio often approaches 90-to-1, she said.
African Children’s Choir
Manchester Journal October 26, 2007
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"If you can keep a kid in school there that's huge because there's such a cycle of poverty there," she said. "The kids
have to work to eat."
Keeping kids in school is the main task of the African Children's Choir. They have toured every year since 1984, and
currently have two groups touring the U.S. One of their groups performed on the hit television show "American Idol"
earlier this year.
Getting into the choir involves passing a competitive audition, and those who go on tour only travel for one or two
years. But the money they raise helps pay not only for their own education, but for thousands of other children like
them in Africa, said Seruyange, the chaperone and accountant.
"The organization gave me a normal life, and I believe it's right that we deserve to go out into society and live with
normal people," he said. "Africa is still going through difficult times - I think the plea right now is that Africa and
Uganda still need help."
African Children’s Choir
Globe & Mail  September 10, 2007
Camera-toting partygoers leave paparazzi in the dark
By SIRI AGRELL
TORONTO — On the third floor of the exclusive Holt Renfrew bash Friday night, chic partygoers were sipping
martinis and swapping gossip while they awaited
the arrival of their host, actress, budding designer
and tabloid darling Sienna Miller.
It was a Toronto Film Festival party and outside,
behind the barricades and excluded from the fun,
professional paparazzi could only sit and wait.
But that doesn't mean you'll never see photos
from inside the event. Many guests had cellphone
cameras poised, hoping to snap a shot good
enough to send to any of the dozens of websites
hungry for fresh celebrity sightings that
mainstream media outlets won't have.
"I'd send it to Go Fug Yourself if it turned out,"
said Maxine Mader, a 23-year-old fighting the
crowds, snapping away with her camera phone.
Such is the reality of the new citizen paparazzi,
where regular men and women within shutter
range of celebrities can use their cellphone cameras, and nerve, to launch themselves onto gossip sites and even into the
pages of Us Weekly.
Some take the pictures for cash, participating in a new industry for amateur photography that is quickly challenging the
role of professional lensmen. But most do it just to play a part in tabloid culture, receiving no money and no credit,
remaining as nameless to the public as they are to the A-list celebrity at whom they aimed their flash.
But the new wave of citizen paparazzi who make it past the velvet ropes are causing concern to those running the
events and the pros who earn their living shooting them.
"It's frustrating. They can go places you can't," said Toronto freelance photographer Tom Sandler. "But that's the world
we live in now."
Melanie Greco, publicist for the Four Seasons Hotel, agrees. "It's something we're finding more and more difficult to
control." The hotel has been infiltrated this week by many citizen paparazzi hoping to get that money shot of George
Clooney in his PJs or Brangelina (Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie) engaging in some PDA.
The hotel has strict policies barring photography in its public areas.
But while photographers and camera crews employed with a media organization generally respect the rules of film
festival engagements, guests wielding digital cameras are harder to control.
African Children’s Choir
Globe & Mail  September 10, 2007
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"If they take pictures, we don't condone that behaviour but it's not like we're going to jump on top of them or anything,"
Ms. Greco said.
This year's festival has already spawned its quota of citizen paparazzi moments. Photographs of Jake Gyllenhaal
arriving at Pearson International Airport were quickly sent to gossip websites like Pink is the new Blog, while shots of
Sienna Miller's Annie Hall meets Alice in Wonderland were online before the Factory Girl had made it to the VIP
room.
Agencies are now popping up to take advantage of this material, and the new labour force that provides it.
A site called Mr Paparazzi.com encourages visitors to send photographs of celebrities, and features a gallery of amateur
shots of Pamela Anderson and Britney Spears, each plastered with the dollar figure paid to the contributor.
"If you get something good, don't hang around, send us the pictures NOW!' the site screams. "This will increase your
chances of making BIG bucks."
This coaching, and coaxing, is taking it's toll on the paparazzi industry.
"We try to maintain a level of professionalism that just isn't there with those people," Mr. Sandler said. "They have no
sense of what else is going on around them. They'll just stick their arm right into your shot."
Mr. Sandler said that because cellphones and inexpensive digital cameras are now equipped to transfer large files,
photographs taken by untrained shooters are now of sufficient quality to appear in newspapers and in magazines.
And because members of the citizen paparazzi will often accept lower rates, he worries that prices will fall for all
photographers. While some sites pay a one-time fee, others offer no fee, or, like Getty-owned Scoopt, pays members 40
per cent of gross sales prices.
"They flood the market with substandard material," he said. "It can eat away at the business."
Over the past few years, citizen paparazzi have gradually gained footing in Canada.
A Calgary bartender dished to a British tabloid about her romp with Prince Harry, while the C-list celebrity equivalent
of the Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination was produced in Toronto last year when a McDonald's patron
captured a cellphone video of a drunken Ashlee Simpson berating the fast food chain's staff.
The maker of the video sold it to CTV, and it was quickly broadcast around the world to the embarrassment of the
young pop star.
Jordan Schwartz, vice-president of daytime programming for CTV, said the network was approached with the Simpson
video, and that they do not solicit for amateur material.
"We have our own photographers and use agencies. We have professionals who do that," he said. "But if somebody
brings us something that we think is newsworthy or of interest to our audience then we'll examine it carefully."
The Simpson footage was worth paying for, he said, because "nobody else had it."
"You always want to have something that nobody else has. And every cellphone has a camera attached to it these days
so I think we'll be seeing more of that kind of thing."
African Children’s Choir
Tonight Show Appearance
December 22, 2006
TUNE IN TO NBC'S TONIGHT SHOW WITH JAY LENO
THIS FRIDAY, DECEMBER 22 TO HEAR THE
AFRICAN CHILDREN'S CHOIR SING 'SILENT NIGHT'
The AFRICAN CHILDREN'S CHOIR will be performing 'Silent Night' on NBC's THE TONIGHT
SHOW WITH JAY LENO scheduled for telecast this Friday evening, December 22 (subject to change,
check local listings).
Founded in 1984 by human rights activist Ray Barnett, the choir has performed at many prestigious
events and concert halls, including for Kofi Annan at the UN General Assembly Hall in New York, with
Bobby McFerrin at Royal Albert Hall in London, with Mariah Carey & Sir Paul McCartney at Live 8 in
London and at Nelson Mandela’s AIDS awareness concert in South Africa.
Comprised of children ages seven to eleven who have lost one or both parents to poverty or disease, The
African Children’s Choir performs throughout the world bringing hope and joy to everyone they meet.
The Choir’s programs are a colorful mix of song and dance from many regions of Africa with popular,
gospel and contemporary music, much of which is accompanied on traditional in-struments by the
children. They are also joined on stage by two adult singers who were members of the Choir as children.
The African Children’s Choir has dedicated its current choir tour to helping more than 2,700 children who
have lost one or both parents to AIDS or other diseases, and is working hard to draw attention to their
desperate plight.
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To learn more about The African Children’s Choir, please visit their website at
www.africanchildrenschoir.com.
N E W Y O RK | L OS A N G E LE S
AFRICAN CHILDREN’S CHOIR
CTV.ca  September 21, 2006
Choir members honoured to help other African kids
When asked what they like best about being part of the African Children's Choir (the angelic young
singers who joined Canadian Idol's Top 10 on stage during the finale), its members don't list the
international travel, live television appearances and star treatment that comes with being part of the
talented group.
"The best thing is to help the children in Africa," Esther Birungi, 8, told Eye on Idol the evening of the
choir's Idol performance.
Her noble motives were echoed by choir-mate Jimmy Magala, also 8 years old.
"(The best part is to) raise money for children in Africa," he echoed, adding "but I also like swimming
inside instead of the river."
Magala and Birungi are two of 25 members of the choir, currently on a North America tour to raise
money for their own post-secondary education and that of 7,000 other children from across their home
continent.
The choir's members hail from Uganda, are between the ages of 6 and 10 years old, and have all either
faced the death of a parent or extreme poverty. Unbeknownst to the children when they attended a
sponsored music camp, they were also auditioning to be part of the choir, said tour director Stephanie
Coleman.
"The camp is for finding out who can handle the tour life, if they can sing and how quickly they can
learn," she said, noting being selected for the choir means experiencing things many of these children
would never dream of. "After the tour, they'll go back to a music boarding school... and hopefully
become future leaders in their country."
Before the choir's Idol stop, where it sang a medley including Pat Benetar's "We Belong," the tour
included stops in Washington State, Illinois, Indiana and Texas. The singers will continue touring in the
U.S., making Canadian stops at private events in Vancouver and London, before heading home around
the new year.
The choristers travel by bus and, in addition to their singing practice, do 10-12 hours of school a week.
Many had never seen a washing machine or many other items North Americans consider commonplace
before the tour, and have proven their maturity with their open-mindedness and interest in the world
around them, Coleman said.
"It's an amazing experience to watch them grow and develop," she said. "These kids can bridge any gap.
"When we take this choir around America, we're bringing the message of hope, beauty and the dignity of
these children."
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African Children’s Choir
Chicago Defender  September 15, 2006
Shiloh Seventh-day Adventist Church is Hosting the African
Children’s Choir benefit
BY EARL CALLOWAY
Frances Love, music director at Shiloh Seventh Day Adventist Church, and the church's music committee
will host a concert featuring the African Children's Choir, Sept. 23 at 5:30 p.m. The program will be held
at the church, 7000 S. Michigan Ave.
The African Children's Choir is currently celebrating its 21st year and has been performing around the
world representing the needs of Africa's most vulnerable and abandoned children - especially the
continent's 11 million AIDS orphans. The choir has performed before international audiences across
North America, Europe and Africa, and has participated in such broadcasts as Live8.
Their influence has been tremendous every since the young vocalists embarked on their mission in
Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada - by way of London from Africa. Many African children have
benefited from their benevolence.
Ray Barnett, chairman of the team, said "Thanks to our young choir ambassadors and the generous
support from donors and Friends of the Choir sponsors, we've been able to establish numerous schools
throughout Africa and continue to provide an education to more than 6,500 children who otherwise would
have gone without. We have helped thousands of destitute families obtain the emergency food, clothing
and medical care they needed to survive."
The African Children's Choir first started helping Rwandan children in the mid-1990s, after the horrific
1994 genocide that left a million people dead and hundreds of thousands of orphans to fend for
themselves.
Barnett traveled to the devastated country with a psychiatric team in late 1994 to assess the situation.
Upon learning that many of the children were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, the choir
organization immediately began producing training guides and materials on the stress-related disorder and
sent teams to Rwanda to train childcare workers across the country on how to effectively address the
problem. While in Rwanda, the team forged a special relationship with the Gisimba Memorial Centre, an
orphanage located in Rwanda's capital, Kigali.
The choir is made up of children age 7-11 years old, natives of some of Africa's most desperate countries.
Some of the choir members have lost one or both of their parents to poverty or disease in their native
land.
2ND ANNUAL ONE X ONE Benefit Gala HOSTED BY MATT DAMON RAISES
MILLIONS
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - Toronto, Canada – September 11, 2006
Founder of ONE X ONE, Joelle Berdugo Adler, announced today that the ONE X ONE Benefit gala
last night was a resounding success raising over 2M dollars to financially assist earmarked
charities. Academy Award Winner Matt Damon hosted the 2nd Annual ONE X ONE with special
guests Brad Pitt, Jeffrey Sachs, Penelope Cruz and many more.
As auctioneer, Matt Damon was able to raise $260,000 on one item – The Ocean’s 13 Premiere in
Los Angeles combined with an HP Home Entertainment package. Leveraging his friend Brad Pitt
in order to create a bidding war, the sold out crowd of over 500 people from around the world
were able to share in the excitement. Soon after, Wyclef Jean and the African Children’s Choir
wowed the crowd with Wyclef’s own ONE X ONE improv set.
Another live auction item, a Smart Car signed by all the notables during the evening, was bid on
and won by the auctioneer himself – Matt Damon. Live music performers played far into the night
including Grammy Award Winner John Legend, ONE X ONE musical ambassadors and Juno
Award winners Raine Maida and Chantal Kreviazuk, and Sam Roberts, to name a few.
“Never in my wildest dreams could I ever have thought that in our second year we could have
achieved the awareness and support that will undoubtedly make a global impact,” said Joelle
Berdugo Adler, “I pray that we will take this incredible night and go forward in the most positive
way and with the utmost of humility.”
ONE X ONE is a non-profit foundation committed to supporting, preserving and improving the
lives of children. Through its annual campaign, ONE X ONE is dedicated to helping create a world
where children can live in safety and with dignity.
The millions of funds raised in this years night of “music and story telling” will financially assist:
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War Child Canada
Right to Play
Boys & Girls Club of Canada
Child Find
The African Children’s Choir
and initiavives:
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Running The Sahara
Millenium Promise
For more information please go to www.onexone.org.
For media please contact:
Mich Ahern
Working with VK & Associates and ONE X ONE
416.454.8060
[email protected]
For Immediate Release
African Children’s Choir Performs
at the UN General Assembly Hall
June 2, 2006 - New York: The African Children’s Choir was honored to perform last night at the UN
General Assembly Hall at “An Evening of Remembrance and Hope: Uniting the World Against AIDS”.
United Nation Secretary-General Kofi Annan, international actors and musicians, people living with HIV
and long time AIDS activists, joined the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS)
Executive Director Dr. Peter Piot for the event.
The evening was part of the 2006 High Level Meeting on AIDS, bringing together more than a dozen
Heads of State and Government, over 100 Ministers and more than 1,000 civil society representatives
from around the world.
The African Children’s Choir began the evening performances and one of the Choir members had the
distinct honor of introducing Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Other participants in the observances were
actors Richard Gere, Whoopi Goldberg and Naomi Watts as well as internationally renowned musicians
Angelique Kidjo, Salman Ahmed, Wyclef Jean and Paul Winter.
Their voices of hope and healing were a tremendous addition, and no doubt deeply moved those in
attendance.
The African Children’s Choir consists of young children from some of the most needy and desperate
areas in Africa. Many of the Choir members have themselves become orphans because of AIDS. They
are spreading the message about the plight of their brothers and sisters and friends back home and
demonstrating to the world that Africa’s most vulnerable children have beauty, dignity and unlimited
ability.
The African Children’s Choir has blessed audiences all over the world; from events such as London’s
Live 8 and Toronto’s ONEXONE to concerts in hurricane-ravaged southern United States. From the
worldwide stage to small communities across North America, the Choir is touching thousands with their
beautiful voices, colorful costumes and traditional African dances.
For more information on the African Children’s Choir and an overview our programs and projects in
Africa, please visit the Media section at www.africanchildrenschoir.com or email us at
[email protected]
-30For more information;
Deanna Bogart
African Children’s Choir
E. [email protected]