Moville Community College/Watoto- Uganda

Moville Community College is delighted to be part of the development education project run by Worldwise.This school year 2009/2010 we were fortunate enough to create a link with Watoto Children's Village in our link Country of Uganda. We were impressed by the felicity of Watoto.We were delighted when they accepted our invitation to visit us in Moville February 18th to 20th 2010. The year has been a busy one preparing for the Choirs visit and insuring that everything ran smoothly during their stay.

Our main aims regarding the Choirs visit were

1 To create awareness about Watoto Uganda
2 To raise awareness about life in Uganda ( especially for Orphans)
3 To allow for a cultural exchange between Ugandan children and Irish students.
4 To create a solid link with Watoto which we will follow up in the future.

Moville welcomes Watoto Children’s Choir Watoto’s children’s choir, Uganda visited Moville February 18th – 20th 2010. The choir was made up of 22 children aged between 6-14 years old. The choir was from the Watoto orphanages located north of Kampala, Uganda’s main city. Uganda was ranked one of the 20 poorest countries in the world, with half of the population living below the poverty line. Moville Community College is part of the Inishowen Development Education Network facilitated by Inishowen Development Partnership and funded by worldwise education programme.

Through this network we have greatly benefited from their involvement in development education workshops and our school is linked to Watoto Children’s project. “I thought the workshops were educational and taught me a lot about the living conditions in Uganda. And it was really cool to try the different Ugandan foods” says Laura Bonner, transition year. “I found it really informative and eye opening to learn what some African people have to do just to survive. I realized they would prefer to be taught how to solve their problems opposed to having it done for them” Fergal Kelly, Transition year. On February 18th the choir arrived and had their welcome meal and celebration in Mary Deeney’s.

The meal was sponsored by St. Vincent de Paul. It was an African style stew served with rice. The entertainment was provided by the muff accordion band which the children thoroughly as they got to participate in dancing with the bands pom-pom’s. And Moville also put together a choir to perform with the Ugandan choir and some Irish dancers also preformed a couple of dances for the children. Some art students and Mrs. Hegarty made a welcoming banner for the children’s arrival. The Watoto Children’s choir performed two concerts on Friday the 19th of February in St. Pius X church, Moville at both 1pm and 7pm. Wearing vibrant traditional costumes, the choir fused contemporary African dance with energetic gospel music and have moved audiences worldwide with their spirited “Concerts of Hope” February 20th – The choir enjoyed their brief time in Moville and we hope next time they can stay for longer. They had snow throughout their stay which they loved as many had never seen snow before. Mrs. Cooney, our home economics teacher has visited Uganda as a volunteer “You never forget a stay in Uganda. The people are so welcoming and grateful but there is so much poverty. It is so difficult to see childresn lacking basic food, clothing and medicine. It is difficult to describe. Uganda has a way of occupying part of your heart forever”