How One Photographer uses her talents to help others:
Photographer, Joanne Heaviland and the ICN (International Children’s Network) team, with video and camera in hand, waited for a shy, young Peruvian girl to begin her song. She cleared her throat and began her rendition of “El’ Condor Pasa”, a traditional Andean folk song. Although shy, the group saw potential in her beautiful voice. Joanne recently returned from a 3-week trip to Peru, where the Peruvian girl was among more than 30 children that auditioned for only seven available openings in the World Orphan Choir.
The journey took them to orphanages’ high in the Andes Mountains as high as 17,000 feet. Places where little girls and boys have been abandoned, neglected and abused. Some of the children have parents who live far in the mountains that look after alpacas and have no home and are very poor. Many of the Peruvian Mountain people live in small mud and stone houses that do not have heat or running water. These children, if living with their parents, would be put to work and not be able to attend school. The few that attend school have to walk anywhere from 1-2 hours to get to the nearest school.
As, each child lined up to audition; Joanne and the ICN team listened to their songs and made their selections – some of the hardest decisions they will ever have to make.
“These kids are singing for their lives, literally,” Joanne said. “This was their ticket out to a better life and future. It was heart wrenching.
She first learned of the children’s choir and the organization behind it – the International Children’s Network – when her friend, Heather, and her family acted as a host housing family during the choir’s U.S. tour in 2008. It was during that tour and visit that she met ICN founders Don Windham & Jennie Windham, who were traveling with the Ugandan children’s choir called Matsiko.
Years later, this meeting and friendship with Heather, introduced Joanne to ICN’s work and sparked a conversation about how she could use her talents to be involved in this outreach mission for orphaned and at-risk children.
Meanwhile the ICN team was eventually led to widening the scope to include a global application of its musical outreach mission for orphaned children in other countries as well. “It has always been my dream to have a World Orphan Choir,” Don Windham said. “What better vehicle for those in the West to truly learn the different issues facing our world’s orphaned and vulnerable children?”
Those issues make up what the founder calls “the world’s most tragic human story” – dismal poverty, starvation, AIDS and child sex trafficking among the more than 600 million orphaned and at-risk children worldwide.
Based on the success of the previous Matsiko tours, which included church, school and Festivals throughout the U.S., landed a vocal performance in an Intel commercial for the group. The newest world choir will be made up of children from Liberia, Peru and India.
Joanne’s passion for mission work, the Spanish language and photography led her on a deeper involvement with ICN in Peru. “Having a background in Spanish and in world travel, I was able to be flexible in unknown territory”. “My love for photography, photojournalism and human interest stories made it easy to accept the invitation to Peru when asked by ICN’s Directors”. While in Peru, Joanne was responsible for photographing all the orphaned children in each home. These photographs are used for potential sponsorships and are posted on the ICN Website.
One mountain town, which was at the highest elevation in which they visited, was Macusani, Peru where the need is the greatest and its seasons are opposite to those of North America. In one particular orphanage there is no heat and is extremely cold. She recalls the beautiful children there who were running around in 30-degree temperatures with only sandals and tattered clothing. She wondered how they were able to stay warm in the winter nights. She wondered if there was a way to buy them all space heaters to give them some comfort in the evenings. What she didn’t realize is that it’s a lot more complicated then bringing in space heaters. It’s the cost to run these space heaters that poses a problem.
One of the World Orphan Choir’s main goals will be to continue the progress Matskiko has made to this point in raising awareness and generating sponsorships. In ICN’s case, those sponsorships go well beyond basic financial support. The premise, according to the founder, is to nip poverty at its root and plant hope in its place.
“ICN has roughly 3,000 children sponsored and with the choir the goal is to sponsor over 1,000 children each tour,” Windham said. “Sponsorship allows children who are hopeless the chance to receive an education all the way through the highest levels of their nation’s university or vocational systems. It breaks the cycle of poverty and allows the children to become a hope for others in their village, nation and the world, instead of being another dependent person who has no hope whatsoever”
There are several strong examples of how ICN’s outreach has affected that kind of change.
They don’t bring these kids over here to Westernize them; they know full well that they’re going back to become ambassadors for their country. One child ended up being the choir director and writing many of the songs and arrangements for the choir tour. Another was once a Ugandan child who completed law school and ended up helping with visa and embassy paperwork. When there seemed to be a paperwork gridlock in getting the choir kids out of Uganda, he came to the rescue.
“In Liberia, countless children were able to go to school for the first time and there are children who have become and will become lawyers, doctors, mechanics and other professions because of simple educational sponsorships through ICN,” Windham said. “In Uganda, ICN has a sponsored child that is one year from becoming a heart surgeon. He desires to help the children in the bush villages of Uganda where Albert Schweitzer once worked. In Peru, we just met with nearly 30 university students who are there because of sponsorship and who want to help children in the same situation they once faced.” But bringing about positive change requires a cultural exchange that informs and expands the worldview of all parties involved.
Asked why she was so enthusiastic about passing along this philanthropic passion for mission work and using her talents to help others, along to her children – she replied. “It’s about making a difference in this world that really counts. She refers back to one of her favorite quotes: “It’s not about what we have but what we do with what we have that counts.”
The World Orphan Choir will be coming to San Diego, March 2012. For more information on the International Children’s Network, its choirs and sponsorship programs, visit: www.icnchildren.net
Photography from Peru: www.joanneheavilandphotography.com
