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Night to remember can be an over used phrase, however, if the response received by the Fountain of Peace team and our web site are any indication, then a great time was had by everyone who attended the ‘give a child a chance concert’, including those who performed, on behalf of the children of Uganda.

 

All Saint's Church

Peace Ruharuza

 

The venue of All Saint’s Church in Woodford Wells was perfect. A mixture of classic church architecture combined with a bright and contemporary interior produced an ambience that was to enhance this very special evening for almost 400 invited guests and a fitting venue for charity trustee Peace Ruharuza to share a small part of her own life as a child in Uganda. Her life account provided both insight and purpose to the evening and also to the future work of the charity.

HE Mrs Joan Rwabyomere, High Commissioner of Uganda, attended and eloquently addressed the audience as part of the evening’s celebrations, while Poet Sugar Black shared her powerful poem ‘Many Nations One World’ that induced the reality of the past, where opportunities to address injustice and poverty have been missed by our world leaders, while at the same time evoking the sense that things can and will get better when we realise that we are all one race, simply called humanity.

 

HE Mrs Joan Rwabyomere

Poet Andrea Sugar Black

 

Three international gospel choirs came together to provide a unique evening of extreme diversity, both in musical style and culture. The concert was graciously hosted by Reverend Bazil Meade of the London Community Gospel Choir, whose own distinguished style and personality shone like a bright light throughout the celebration.

The concert opened with New Joy Gospel Choir from Denmark whose performance assured us that this is a choir we will hear a lot more of in the years ahead. New Joy was instantly followed by the Agape Divine Intervention Choir who resonated the sound of Africa all around All Saint’s to the delight of a very enthusiastic audience.

 

 

The first half ended with high tempo music and dance that heightened the expectation for the concluding half of this ‘give a child a chance concert’. The second half realised all the expectations of the audience as the London Community Gospel Choir took to the stage and once again raised the bar with their own inimitable contemporary style of British Gospel music.

 

 

The sense of disappointment could be felt from the audience when they realised the end of the concert was drawing to an end. When Bazil Meade invited the Agape Intervention Choir to join him and the London Community Gospel Choir on stage the evening erupted into a wonderful finale with songs so fitting as ‘We Are the World’, Amazing Grace and finally the Edmund Hawkins classic ‘Oh Happy Day’.

For all of us who are associated in one way or another with the Fountain of Peace Children’s Foundation, I doubt that even in our wildest dreams we would ever have envisaged such a wonderful night of music, dance and praise. To start the next phase of our journey in such a wonderful way was truly heaven sent. We are all so very grateful to everyone who attended and performed on behalf of the children of Uganda, but especially to Reverend Bazil Meade who directed the evening in such a relaxed manner ensuring everyone had the opportunity to enjoy themselves. Let’s hope we can do it again in the future.