Written by Livingstone Intern, Hayley Willis
Carols by Candlelight
The Happy Africa Foundation hosted its annual Christmas event, Carols by Candlelight. There was a Christmas market, orchestra music, Santa’s Grotto, Children’s play corner, obstacle course and raffle. The hosts at Serenity supplied delicious food and drink which became very popular with all the guests and so did our main event, the carol singers by candlelight.
The amazing choir of children from Linda Community spent weeks preparing their songs and put on an amazing show! Well done guys!! A massive thank you to everyone who helped on the day, prepared for the day, supplied raffle tickets, and turned up on the day!! Between us we made K4100 ($410) to go towards renovating the school at Zambezi Sawmills.
Santa comes to the Children’s Hospital
It was a moving moment when many of the sick children at the hospital on Christmas Eve met Santa for the very first time. Despite their obvious sickness and pain, their eyes lit up as Santa gave them a high five and read them some stories. He then gave them all a special present from the many donations gratefully received by The Happy Africa Foundation over the past year.
This memory will stay with the children and the volunteers for a very long time. A special thank you goes to everyone who gave us donations, and of course to our very own Santa, who made sure the sick children in hospital still had a magical Christmas.
Old People’s Home Christmas Party
There were so many enthusiastic children in the choir that came together for The Happy Africa Foundations Carols by Candlelight event, that they put on another show. They went to The Old People’s Home to sing them carols and get them in the Christmas spirit. They had so much fun they decided to stay and dance with the residents during the Christmas party the African Impact volunteers had put together. Everyone got so much out of it, and it was great to see the different generations having fun together!
Christmas Day in Livingstone
On Christmas Day we wanted to do something special for a vulnerable local community that is dear to our hearts and the hearts of our volunteers, who do many community projects with the residents. There are currently 15 families who live on Linda Farm, the farm designed to rehabilitate those with disabilities through agriculture. We spent days creating boxes of gifts for the 15 families. Each family received a box containing toiletries and helpful things for the home, and then all 105 residents were given a personalized present. Preparing these boxes was not a small job, so thank you to all the volunteers and staff who either donated to the boxes or who helped to put them together!!
On Christmas morning the staff and volunteers all headed to Linda Farm. Arran, the African Impact Volunteer-Coordinator sat on the car roof in a Santa hat just to add to the children’s festive excitement as we drove in, with them chanting, “Happy Christmas! Happy New Year!”
Every family was given their personalized box of presents and a 15kg of Maize, kindly donated by Musanza Milling. The volunteers and staff sang “We wish you a merry Christmas’ to everyone at the farm. They were all so happy to have been given such attention on Christmas Day, and to have a present to mark the special day. It was a memory for the volunteers and staff to cherish too!!