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One of the Millennium Development Goals calls for the reduction of child mortality through a collective commitment to ensure all children are provided sufficient shielding from violence, abuse, disease, starvation, exploitation and discrimination. Adequate health care and nutrition during their infancy, quality early education and maternal support have also been highlighted as ways to address child mortality. Diverse local and international collectives are engaged in reducing child mortality. This article aims to illuminate the activities of a unique ensemble of young people who have decided to make the reduction of child mortality a perpetual priority in their lives.
Soul Influence is a pan-African a cappella septet comprising of youth born in Kenya, Zimbabwe, Zambia and the Democratic republic of Congo. With a multiple award winning debut album, an impressive North American touring history and an ever increasing roster of prominent artists with whom they’ve sung (Alicia Keys and the Barenaked Ladies), it is surprising to note that musical success was and still is perceived as auxiliary to their philanthropic undertakings.
Since its conception in March 2003, Soul Influence has consistently managed to emphasize the promotion of the welfare of children by supporting organizations and enterprises concerned almost exclusively with the plight of vulnerable children. In 2003, Soul Influence supported the Motherly Care Children’s Home (an AIDS orphanage in Kenya), Kajiado Girls home (a safe house for under-sixteen Maasai girls fleeing arranged/polygamous marriages and/or female circumcision) and the King’eero Home Based Care Program (a group of Kenyan youth volunteers providing basic home based care to people with AIDS).
Anxious to increase its level of involvement and impact on the plight of vulnerable children, Soul Influence teamed up with the York Region Committee in support of the Stephen Lewis Foundation in their ‘If I had a Million Dollars’ campaign, with the goal of amassing $1 million dollars for the Stephen Lewis foundation. Through a series of concerts, dinners, garage sales, school fundraisers, individual and collective donations, this campaign raised over $950,000! Simultaneously in 2004, Soul Influence began working with the Mully Children’s Home, a comprehensive non-profit organization in Nairobi providing shelter, food, healthcare, education and employment to over 800 street children.
As the Millennium Development Goals recognized the need to promote an overall environment within which children flourish, Soul Influence, likewise, appreciated the urgency for facilitating positive conditions for child development. Hence, concurring with their activities at the International AIDS Conference in Toronto, Soul Influence lent their support to the Stephen Lewis Foundation’s inaugural Grandmothers to Grandmothers gathering which will provide essential psycho-social and economic support to poverty-stricken grandmothers raising their orphaned grandchildren.
Soul Influence is currently embarking on another ambitious undertaking: to provide much needed medical supplies to the sole pediatric hospital in Ndola, Zambia, through a partnership with Health Partners International of Canada as well as health professionals from the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. Who would have thought music and humanitarian efforts could blend so harmoniously together?
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