Empower African Children Blog

In the Community

TAMMY LJUNGBLAD/Kansas City Star

In addition to public performances in theaters, the Spirit of Uganda dance troupe makes regular visits to schools, churches, and Macy’s stores. It is always a big hit when people have the chance to interact directly with the children.  At these visits, the Spirit of Uganda group will typically give a short performance, answer questions, or put on a dance or drumming workshop. 

Check out these great photos from a recent visit to Ray Marsh Elementary School in Shawnee, Kansas.

Photos from The Shawnee Dispatch
Photos from The Kansas City Star

Reader’s Digest Features Transcendent Spirit Book

Taken from Empower African Children's News Page:

The March issue of Reader's Digest has a prominent feature on Douglas Menuez's photography book Transcendent Spirit: The Orphans of Uganda which profiles the lives of children supported by Empower African Children. Many of those featured in the book are currently traveling throughout the United States as members of the Spirit of Uganda 2008 Tour, including Empower African Children staff members Alexis Hefley (Founder, CEO) and Peter Kasule (Artistic Director).

Reader's Digest -- which has 80 million readers -- has devoted several pages to the beautiful photography from this museum-quality book. The book follows the inspiring journey of a group of children who overcame tremendous hardships to form a dance troupe and become cultural ambassadors for their country. They have brought their energy and joyful performance to audiences across the U.S., which has resulted in the support of many other orphans in Uganda. Rising from the poverty and devastation of AIDS and civil war in Uganda to receive standing ovations while touring the best theaters in the U.S., these exceptional children bring good news from Africa.

“This book should be on the shelves of every school in America.”
— David Hume Kennerly, former Presidential Photographer and winner of the Pulitzer Prize in photography

Transcendent Spirit was underwritten by Macy's in order to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Macy’s Passport. Thanks to the generosity of Macy's, all proceeds from copies of Transcendent Spirit purchased through our website go to Empower African Children.

Buy the Book Here!

Universal Studios

Here's Spirit of Uganda enjoying their day off at Universal Studios in California, thanks to Lisa Jones and our friends at Universal Studios for making it possible.

Hidden Villa

  Hidden Villa is an enchanted, beautiful place tucked away in a valley of green hills just outside the Bay Area, and it was home to the Sprit of Uganda for the last ten days. We stayed in dormitory-like cabins. It has a working organic farm, with live farm animals and everything.

The best thing about a place like Hidden Villa is that our time there brings us closer together. It is like being home with a large group of brothers and sisters. We hang out together in the common room, cook together, eat together, pray together, enjoy the great outdoors…and we have the whole place all to ourselves. Even better, we have the opportunity to get to know generous, compassionate people.

A volunteer named Robin Stavisky (bless her heart) was on top of everything. For ten days, she organized teams of volunteers to help out with breakfast, lunch and dinner. While the volunteers cooked, we hung out with their friends and children. Some of the groups that came in brought gifts and donations. We were blown away by the love and generosity from these kind souls.

On the days the children weren’t performing, they rode bicycles (a favorite activity), read novels, did their hair, hiked, worked puzzles, hung out with the volunteers and families, surfed the Internet, and caught up with some schoolwork.  Check out some photos from Hidden Villa.

On Sunday evening, the whole tour group had a discussion about personal leadership. We heard from a man named Dennis Mars — a young, successful entrepreneur — who shared with us his powerful story of success. Afterwards, each member of the Tour shared their hopes and ambitions, and we all left that meeting feeling stronger about the future and the possibilities this Tour holds for each of us.

Saying goodbye to our new friends at Hidden Villa was difficult. Many of us were teary-eyed, but one thing is for sure: we shall all remember Hidden Villa. What a special time and special place!

WAR/DANCE

If you're a fan of Spirit of Uganda, then you'll also love the film "WAR/DANCE". This incredible film — nominated for an Academy Award for best documentary feature — does an amazing job of telling the story of children affected by the war in Northern Uganda. "WAR/DANCE" follows the lives of three extraordinary children, focusing on their involvement in music and dance classes at a camp for people displaced by the war. Their talent earns them an unlikely invitation to participate in the musical and dance competition held in Uganda's capital of Kampala.

Most of the children in Spirit of Uganda — Empower African Children's dance troupe — are very similar to the children in "WAR/DANCE" in that they have tragically lost parents or relatives. For families in the southern part of Uganda, though, it's not war but AIDS that's ravaging communities and orphaning young children. This is significantly different from the trauma of child soldiers and rebel warfare, but the loss of one or both parents is obviously damaging to the psyche of a child regardless of the cause. 

A universal theme — the power of music to overcome tragedy — links our dance group together with the dancers in the film. "WAR/DANCE" does an outstanding job of portraying the importance of music to give the children an outlet, a voice, and way of expressing themselves. In fact, I'd go so far as to say this: Once you see WAR/DANCE, you'll look never look at the children who perform in Spirit of Uganda the same way.

Shopping Spree!

Editor's Note: Now that the tour is underway, we want the readers of this blog to be able to keep up with its progress -- both behind the scenes and in the spotlight -- as close to the action as possible. So we dispatched Sarah Mbabazi to be our eyes and ears on the tour.  A native of Uganda and recent college graduate through the US scholarship program, Sarah will be traveling on the bus throughout the whole tour, supervising the children and keeping us updated on this blog. This is her first post.

On January 17th, Spirit of Uganda arrived in San Francisco, California, after flying for about 24 hours. For some of our members it was the first time to visit the United States and it's been exciting to see escalators, people-movers, big theaters, moving curtains, tall buildings and big highways (among lots of other stuff). One of the exciting events -- if not the best so far -- was the shopping spree at Macy's West department store in San Francisco.

When we pulled up in the bus, there was a team of Macy's employees screaming, cheering, and holding signs with each of the children's names. Every child was assigned to their own personal volunteer shopper to help them. They were each given a very generous limit to spend and came away with wonderful new outfits, nice winter coats, and new friends.

What a special day! Our friends at Macy's spoiled us. No one could contain the excitement and the joy for being pampered, and I think the people at Macy's enjoyed it as much as us. Definitely a day to remember…

Here are some photos of the shopping spree.
And here's a short movie of the children singing a song to thank the Macy's volunteers.