Voices Around The World

A special Christmas song, written some years ago when I was working in London around Christmas time. It was a cold and rainy day and I came across a rough-looking guy busking outside Bakerloo Underground Railway Station. The strange thing was that he was singing many normal Christmassy type songs Silent Night, We Wish You A Merry Christmas, Jingle Bells etc. but he sang them in a very bitter and sad tone that made me feel quite uncomfortable. As I walked off to catch my train home, I got to thinking about all of the homeless people like this guy who must be having a rough time in the middle of all the crazy hectic business people, and the mad last minute Christmas shoppers rushing about and what an odd contrast this seemed to be. My wish is that the song makes us all think a bit and reach out to help some of these folks in some way shape or form.

Making music and generating funds from downloads to help children in Tanzania get a proper education - Just released - the audio single and video of this year's Voices Around The World (VATW) single 'Sunshine' #TheSunshineSong   Every year since 2012 Voices Around The World #VoicesAroundTheWorld  has produced a song that schools and youth organisations all over the world teach their students/choirs. Vocals are recorded and sent to VATW along with video clips and all of these are mixed and edited to come up with the final master recording and video. The VATW project has worked with well known people in the British music industry such as Howard Jones and now has a back catalogue of successful songs from the past 5 years. This year's amazing song 'Sunshine' was written and produced for the project by some up and coming young musicians at Bath Spa University in Bath, University, UK.

The Sunshine Song is set to be a success all over the world and ALL funding generated through downloads will go to help develop the schools in the Njombe district of Tanzania and thereby significantly improve the life chances of the children. Njombe is a truck stop town on one of the main trans-African truck routes. Sadly many of the truck drivers are HIV carriers and thereby spread the virus when they overnight in Njombe. As a result, many of the children lose their parents and are themselves often HIV infected. By making a download of the new song and/or video you can help us in reversing this tragedy. DO IT NOW AND PERSUADE YOUR FRIENDS TO DO THE SAME! Click here to go to the Sunshine download page.

Please definitely include #VoicesAroundTheWorld  in all social media posts   

All schools that participate in Voices Around The World should be immensely proud of the way they are helping to improve the life chances of young people in Njombe, Tanzania. Voices Around The World is part of a team that is working to help improve the education for children in Njombe. The living conditions for the children are quite harsh - many of the them have been orphaned due to the high impact of aids/HIV in this part of Tanzania. Some schools do exist in the area, but not all children can get a place, and many of them are known as 'street kids.' Njombe is a transit town for truckers transporting their loads from Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda in the north to Mozambique in the south. It is common knowledge that the truckers in Africa also transport the HIV virus with them and give it to the 'twilight ladies' (an African term) who meet them at the trucking stops. The virus is thereby introduced and sustained in isolated communities like Njombe. One of the areas where the trucks over-night is adjacent to the main school in Njombe - St. Mary's. This area of Tanzania has one of the highest levels of HIV/AIDS in Africa and the level in Tanzania as a country is relatively high as well.

Currently we are looking to support St Mary's School  - to improve the buildings, facilities and quality of teaching. Facilities and resources for teaching are currently very limited. So far, our team has enabled work to build new classrooms for the school and has helped to establish school development plans. Work has also been done to introduce school gardens, where produce is grown that goes into the school meals. Through sponsorship, VATW has sent some music equipment over to the school  to help the teachers and students get involved in the VATW project. This year we are putting funding in to develop some basic sports facilities and to purchase text books. Helping the Njombe children is an exciting project and with the help of all of those participating in Voices Around The World and others who are helping to fund-raise, we aim to provide a much improved quality of education in Njombe over the next 5 years and further ahead!