More than 50 young singers from London are showing their solidarity with children from the Matamando choir from Chinganji in Malawi by singing one of their songs in an inspiring film to help raise money for WaterAid.
The song, which the Matamando choir regularly perform at church and community events, featured in a film as part of a campaign launched by the charity, called ‘Where there’s water’.
The name of the song is ‘Ndalimbana Nako’, which translates to “I’ve struggled with”, and expresses gratitude for blessings like family, talent and overcoming difficult times.
Delina,16, who sings with the Islington Music Centre London, said:
“When I was watching the video we got sent, it looked really lively, I remember how beautiful the harmonies were and I was excited to start singing them.”
Her choirmaster and founder of the centre based in Islington and Southwark, Richard Frostick said:
“They are singing in Chichewa, with a completely different set of vowels and consonants and we want to do that justice. If you don’t tell people that something is difficult, they very often won’t find it difficult, so I just said ’sing this’ and they sang it. Extraordinary really. And then we did some tweaks so that we could try and get as close to the sound the Malawi choir are making. Then the children started to fall in love with the music.”
Some of the funds raised by the ‘Where there’s water’ campaign will be spent on ensuring everyone in the community has clean water close to where they live.
The London based singers are part of a wider group called ‘Sing for Water’ which is made up of more than 500 people in support of WaterAid and since 2002 has raised almost £1.5 million for the charity.
