BERWICK Church of Christ welcomes back the Watoto Children's Choir for the third year later this week, in the hope of raising enough money to build another home or classroom for Ugandan orphans.
The choir, a group of 18 Ugandan children who have lost at least one of their parents to AIDS or war, are in Australia to spread the word about the plight of Uganda's orphans.
The church's previous concerts were a huge success - raising more than $40,000 in 2006, enough to build one house, Berwick Church of Christ spokeswoman Lisa Thomas says.
"A team from Berwick went to Uganda in 2007 to build the home.
"Then in August 2007 we raised more than $50,000 to build a classroom, which was built in January 2008 by a team of Casey residents."
Lisa says the church hopes to raise at least $40,000 this year to build another classroom.
"We have some very generous donors, but the concert is open to all and families are welcome to come along and donate what they can at the door."
The choir singing at Berwick are one of several Watoto Children's Choirs now touring the world.
to raise funds and awareness.
Lisa says the idea behind the Watoto homes is to give orphaned children a chance to live in a normal home environment.
"There is a host mum, who takes care of eight children, sometimes including her own."
The concept was developed two decades ago, after Canadians Gary and Marilyn Skinner moved their young family to Kampala, the war-torn capital of Uganda.
Gary was born to missionary parents in Zimbabwe in 1952, and left his family and home to attend Bible College in Canada.
In 1979, the Skinners moved to Zambia as missionaries, then to Uganda in 1983.
It was during these years as missionaries that their lives were changed forever.
"In 1988, in a town called Luwero, I was changed," Gary says.
"I was confronted by a naked reality that I could not ignore. Luwero had been particularly ravaged by the wars that plagued Uganda for so long. As we approached the town, we began to pass the roadside stalls where villagers normally sold bananas, mangos and pineapples.
"With the war at an end, Luwero's people began to mourn their losses, so the stalls became museums of death, where bananas, mangos and pineapples were replaced with hundreds of human skulls."
The same day, Gary visited a 79-year-old widow.
"As we walked through the banana groves behind her small hut, she began to point out the graves of her husband and six of her children. AIDS had killed them all. Her last surviving child, a daughter, was dying of the same disease.
"Surrounded by her 23 grandchildren, she pleaded in the way only a mother who has known the certainty of deep loss can, 'I am an old woman and I can no longer dig.
"One day soon, I will also die. Who then will look after my grandchildren?'."
In 1994, Watoto Childcare Ministries was born and the choirs began in 2004.
In 2007, Watoto started a home for orphaned and vulnerable babies up to the age of two.
The babies are rescued and nurtured until they are ready to graduate to a Watoto Children's Village or to be reunited with relatives.
Today the Skinners remain wholly dedicated to the cause and to building more children's homes and villages in Uganda.
They spoke last month at Costellos in Berwick of Watoto's recent developments and future plans.
There are now 1700 AIDS orphans in Watoto's three villages.
They also have 53 students in university, and they have begun work on a new centre in Gulu to save child-soldiers.
Gary says children as young as eight, both boys and girls, are stolen from their homes in the night and forced into terrifying, violent situations,
"They are now returning to homes that either don't exist or don't want them because of the atrocities they were forced to commit.
"Watoto has developed a curriculum to help heal their bodies and their souls, with highly skilled psychologists and teachers, new mothers and loving homes."
A coffee farm associated with the villages also enables the children to learn practical skills.
The Watoto Choir will perform at 7pm this Friday and 10am this Sunday at The Berwick Church of Christ, 446 Centre Road, Berwick. The concert is free, but a donation to the Watoto cause is welcomed.
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