Ugandan Children’s Choir Visits Three Local Schools

A young Ugandan girl opened a Matsiko show at St. Matthew’s Church last Thursday by telling the assembled students, ‘I am Jen, I’m 9-years-old and I have a voice.’   Matsiko, a children’s choir that consists of 24 Ugandan orphans ranging in age from 7 to 14, performed at Palisades Elementary on Wednesday, and St. Matthew’s and Village School on Thursday.   Cheerfulness and exuberance radiated from the children as they went into the audience saying ‘Ayeish!’ (‘let’s go’ in Swahili) and shaking hands with audience members, before returning to the stage to sing and dance. Matsiko, which means hope, spreads the message: ‘We are not here to focus on the problem, but on the solution’and the solution is you.’   Don Windham, who is from Covington, Washington, was one of the original founders of International Children’s Network (ICN) and then Matsiko, which he founded in 2003. Windham travels to the Ugandan towns of Jinja, Lusaka, Kassanda, Rwenjiri, Troas, Luggazi, Kamusinene and Gulu, and visits the orphaned children. With the help of village leaders, he selects the children he feels have the best character to join the touring group.   Surprisingly, for a group whose show consists of mostly singing and dancing, neither of those talents are criteria for being chosen. ‘Our trainers teach them how to dance and sing,’ Windham said.   The children participate in the choir for 10 months out of the year, performing one or two shows a day and then having two days off. While on tour, they’re expected to keep up with their studies, which are given to them quarterly by local Ugandan schools. ‘It’s a little like home schooling,’ Windham said. ‘We have seven adult leaders who help them. Many finish early and are ahead of their peers in Uganda.’   ICN’s goal is for sponsorship of orphans until they graduate from college: not only for the children of Matsiko, but for other children in Uganda, Peru and now the Philippines, where so many were left orphaned after the recent deadly autumn typhoons.   ’We look for people who will sponsor a child until they finish college,’ Windham said. ‘These funds pay for the children’s school fees, clothing, food and school supplies. The relationship is personal and kids often take on the last name of their sponsor.’   One of the children he sponsored now calls himself Mubiriu Winham and another child Kirabira Corbett is named after another sponsor. Sam Straxy, who was originally sponsored through ICN, graduated from Makerere University and is now the choir director for Matsiko.   ’Children need sponsorship all the way through the university level in order to truly break the cycle of poverty and become independent,’ Windham said. The cost of sponsorship is about $30 a month. St. Matthew’s school parent Bridget Higley saw the group perform in Sun Valley, Idaho in August and knew she wanted them to come to this area.   ’They were at Our Lady of Snows Church and it was the best church experience I have ever had,’ said Higley, who spent the next two months working out the logistics, finding 12 host families, arranging a party for the children when they arrived, and setting up other performance venues for the children during their visit to Southern California.   Higley and husband Dave, who have three children, Bronwen (8), Owen (7) and Jack (5), invited Ruth (8) and Gloria (11), into their Pacific Palisades home for two nights. ‘They came to our house and had a small duffle bag, which had two sets of clothes, a sleeping outfit, a swim suit and some toiletries,’ said Higley. The Ugandans joined their hosts in the Higley hot tub and afterwards Higley gave the girls new nightgowns, which matched her daughter’s.   The next morning after performing at St. Matthew’s, children from Matsiko answered questions from the school’s third graders, who study Africa. The Ugandans were then taken to the St. Matthew’s Book Fair and allowed to select a book. ‘They gravitated towards a colorful picture dictionary,’ said Higley, who noted that about half of the group chose it. Afterwards, the two groups of children shared a recess.   St. Matthew’s purchased winter jackets for each child, as well as giving a donation and a gift card to Matsiko that can be used to make purchases for Thanksgiving and Christmas.   Higley plans to sponsor the two girls who stayed at her home.   ’We’re always looking for sponsors,’ said Windham who showed photos of two children who were in the last choir, and lost their sponsors. ‘Fifty percent of new sponsors drop out within the first year,’ he said. ICN started as a small youth group at the non-denominational Covington Christian Community Church in 1997. The group, which helped seniors, as well as local and inner-city kids, drew attention and started traveling to other communities.   ’We ‘morphed’ into ICN once the great need of orphaned and at-risk children came to our attention,’ said Windham, who with his wife Jennie founded ICN in 2002 and then later Matsiko. ‘More than 96 percent of every dollar goes to its intended purpose and ICN received the highest rating from GuideStar, a nonprofit watchdog group,’ he said. ‘Sponsors can freely communicate and visit their sponsored child at anytime.’ Visit: www.MATSIKO.com or call (253) 632-8181.