Monday, July 12, 2010

African Jigsaw

This spring saw a marvellous collaboration between Alice, the Coordinator of the Bitengye Designers, and the Victoria Children's Choir. Word reached Eric Allen that Kitambaa was working with this amazing group of women, and he thought how wonderful it would be if the choristers not only sang about Africa, in their performance, African Jigsaw, but also wore shirts made by women in Africa. After some discussions around style and colour, he
entrusted the undertaking to Alice and the Bitengye Designers. We transported the colourful shirts back to Canada with us in March, and now here are some photos of the Victoria Children's Choir performing in their Uganda-made garments. What a sight they must have
been! The choir was delighted with the shirts, and with the overall impact of seeing all the children dressed in them while they performed. And Alice, who did most of the sewing, was equally delighted that the funds from this one project, would pay almost half of the amount she needed to put a roof on her new sewing school.
One postscript to this story - a teacher who was in the audience at the performance had been staying at Canada House in Uganda, and had seen them. But she didn't put two and two together until she saw African Jigsaw and recognized them from her time there. It's a small world indeed!

1 comment:

  1. That's amazing! What a fantastic collaboration - I bet those shirts had an emotional impact on the singers and their audiences that took the performance to a whole other level!

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