Our milestones achieved as of 2010: Watoto Choir

Watoto Choir

Watoto is a holistic care program that aims to rescue children orphaned by Aids and vulnerable women from Uganda through a choir program to build in them leadership skills, so as to empower these people to be future leaders of their country.

The Watoto Choir taskforce [Pearline (I/C), Nathaniel (AI/C), Rachel, Tracy, Cheryl and Isaac] carried out an assembly program on both 29^th and 30^th July 2010 to the JC 2 and JC 1 cohort respectively, inviting the Watoto Choir children to come down and perform for the school.The Watoto Choir sang to the SAJC cohort to spread the message of HIV prevention and hope, touching the hearts of many in the audience.

The students were visibly awed by the enthusiasm shown by the children from the Choir and their admirable strength in facing the future and picking themselves up even after facing tragedies in their lives-losing one or both of their parents to Aids, giving the children from the choir a standing ovation after the end of their inspiring performance.

While the Watoto Choir had certainly left a lasting impression within the hearts of the SAJC students, they also left behind physical memorandums of themselves and their efforts through a fund-raising exercise that sold merchandise from the Watoto organisation.

Also, a few weeks prior to the Watoto Assembly performance, the students of SAJC were bemused to see old jeans hanging on the ceilings around strategic locations of the school compound. As it turns out, the jeans were another fund-raising effort of the Watoto task force in providing the children from Africa comfortable clothes. The responses for the jeans were slow but steady, eventually amounting to more than 30 jeans being collected throughout a two-week publicity period.

The Watoto project is overwhelmingly successful. Besides enjoying a successful fund-raising / jeans donation stint and effectively raising awareness of HIV, Aids and its impact on families in Uganda, the Watoto Choir had also left behind a lasting impression on SAJC, with every student reminded of the enthusiasm and strength of these children every time the verses of “I am not forgotten…” is heard when the morning assembly jingle plays.