African Children’s Choir Tours Iowa
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The African Children’s Choir visited Ames, IA, last Friday night to perform at St. Thomas Aquinas Church. The Iowa State ONE group was there with a table inviting people to sign the ONE Declaration.
The children in the choir, 7 to 12 years old, started out singing songs in both in English and African languages. In the middle of the concert, we watched a video to raise awareness of the conditions the children were living in before they joined the choir – orphaned by AIDS or torn from their families by war and living on the streets of Uganda, Nigeria, or Tanzania.
The presentation was all the more moving when the children came back to perform the second half. They started by telling the audience what they wanted to be when they grow up – doctors, nurses, beauticians, senators, and presidents!
After the concert, several members stood near the exits of the church with clipboards while the rest manned the table. We talked to a number of people about how they can help children with similar stories in Africa by joining ONE and by encouraging our own government to play its role.
Over sixty students and community members added their names to the ONE Declaration and joined us in the fight!
-Elise Mullen, member of ONE at Iowa State
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The ONE Blog is a daily log of the anti-poverty movement. The site is operated by ONE staff, with frequent contributions from volunteers, members and partner organizations.
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November 25, 2007 at 3:39 pm
Thanks, Elise, for your report from the African Children’s Choir performance in Ames, Iowa, recently.
I really love the picture of the children attached to your report and the smiles on everyONE’s faces.
I think that this is also a great place to encourage ONE supporters to bring the message of ONE and our movement to end extreme poverty to their places of worship because of the deep Faith connection to “doing good” to others and of helping the poor.
Last Sunday (18 November), I had the privilege of staffing a ONE outreach booth at our local Interfaith Thanksgiving Prayer Service. This annual event is the largest interfaith event in my area (Austin TX) during the entire year.
I had a good supply of ONE Sabbath info for people to pick up and take back to their centers of worship. I told them that even if they could not participate in a ONE Sabbath activity for the Thanksgiving weekend, that they can still get involved in our movement to end extreme poverty by contacting ONE and arranging a ONE worship service/event at their place of worship in the future.
I collected another ninety signatures on ONE petitions and felt grateful to have finally been able to bring the message of ONE to our largest Interfaith gathering of the year here in central Texas right on the eve of the Presidential Primary activities in my state early next year.
Take very good care of each other. Blessings are always around.~
AS ONE, debbie