2016-12-01Staff Report 2 Walvis Bay Award-winning South African songstress and Unicef Goodwill Ambassador, Yvonne Chaka Chaka, is currently recording a song in Walvis Bay with the Walvis Sunshine Centre that cares for 108 disabled and mentally challenged children. The songstress who jetted into Walvis Bay on Sunday to attend Namibia’s first ever Aids conference was one of the invited guests after she performed in London last weekend. Chaka Chaka shortly after delivering her motivational speech on Monday in Swakopmund availed herself to the Sunshine Centre alongside her son who is also her producer, Themba Mninga, to start recording the charity song. According to Chaka Chaka the song will be included on the album she is currently working on. The song about growing up in Mondessa was translated from Oshiwambo and was written by Gerson Mwatile, a well-known Walvis Bay artist and music teacher who dedicates his time to teach music at the centre. Mwatile’s arrangements and songs done with the children of the centre are what caught the eye of Chaka Chaka in June during her first visit to the centre, where she promised to come back and record with the children “I will make the song just as famous as my hit song ‘I m in love with the DJ’ and the children will have a chance to perform with me. With this song I want to show the world that anything is possible regardless of your circumstances or who you are and music is a universal language that can say it much better,” she explained, adding that all proceeds of the song will go towards the Sunshine Centre. “They are special children that need love and care just like any other child. God made them too, thus we should look at them like any other child.” Mwatile on his part says that it is indeed a humbling and once in a lifetime experience to work with a renowned artist whose music is known across borders. “I am happy that I am part of it and thankful to Yvonne Chaka Chaka for giving me the opportunity to work with her,” he said. One of the kids Poppy Sagarie who sang alongside the songstress, told New Era that she is happy that the songstress came back. “We are happy that we will be touring with her. She is going to make us famous,” Sagarie said. 2016-12-01Staff Report 2
