A children’s choir from Uganda began a six-city concert tour of Taiwan yesterday with a performance in Kaohsiung City.
Before the concert, members of the Watoto choir attended a promotional event in the city’s bustling commercial district to invite city residents to their evening performance.
They also visited a bakery where they tried making dough and baking, and they later toured several educational and cultural institutions.
Kaohsiung was the first stop on the choir’s tour of Taiwan. The choir will give a total of eight performances in six cities around Taiwan until Aug. 30 to raise funds for disadvantaged children in developing countries, according to World Vision Taiwan, a Christian charity that organized the tour.
The Watoto choir, which arrived in Taiwan on Wednesday, will hold its other concerts in Chiayi, Taichung, Hsinchu, Taipei and Hualien.
“We hope to raise people’s awareness of and generate support for orphaned children around the world,” World Vision said in a statement.
The choir, which was formed in 1994, is composed of children aged seven to 15 who have lost their parents in civil conflicts or to AIDS.
The choir members are from Watoto Children’s Village in Uganda, which was founded in 1992 by Canadian missionaries Gary and Marilyn Skinner to care for orphaned children.
Among them is Ronald, 10, who dropped out of school after he lost his parents to AIDS.
“My brothers and sisters and I lived with our grandmother until she found this place where we can live, be fed and receive a good education,” he said.
At the concerts, the Watoto children will sing a Taiwanese song that they have been practicing for a month, said Hank Du (杜明翰), the national director of World Vision Taiwan.
He urged the public to not only donate money to the cause, but also to “come listen to the beautiful voices of the children.”
The charity said the proceeds will go toward Watoto’s work in Uganda and World Vision’s HOPE Initiative, which supports children affected by HIV and AIDS, adding that some of the funds will also be used to help children living in extremely difficult circumstances, such as street children in India and disabled children in China.
This is the third time World Vision has invited Watoto to perform in Taiwan. Details are available at worldvision.org.tw.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai