If music be the food of love, play on!
by CJ ARMSTRONG, Director

These past four weeks, we've had an amazing time with our sister project Breaking Bread and an awesome local Cape Town Band Money for Bali.

For the staff here at African Sunrise, the highlight of our week is ending it off with SoupSessions - a lovely gathering of people from all over Observatory to serve a hot meal and some cooldrinks to the Homeless people. This is not just 'serving a meal' though - there is dancing, music, talking to the homeless people and generally having a good time for an hour of the week. We've all gotten to know the Homeless community so well, that walking around Observatory is often met with waves, smiles, and stopping to chat about our day, or talking about the very important issues that our friends face. We assist Breaking Bread a lot - the people are part of our community and all coming together to talk about the issues people are facing, and how we can help each other is something we love to do.

We've been lucky enough to have a really great friend Tim Welsh from Money for Bali suggest a series of Free Concerts during our SoupSessions - this was pretty amazing! People from all walks of life were singing, dancing and eating together. As Tim says "Music and art should be for everyone to enjoy'. We had the rocking sounds of Money for Bali, Ben Day and The Concrete Lions, Well Done Sun and Bam Bam Brown - all were absolutely amazing bands, and we had some great dancing sessions going!

When interns and volunteers come over with us, we always house them in the suburb of Observatory, and SoupSessions are a perfect way of them getting to know the locals, and for everyone to come together to end off the week and start the weekend by helping others. Our Homeless friends appreciate it and love meeting the new students. What better way to get to know your surroundings, and the very lively community of Observatory.

Tim was interviewed by a local journalist and this is one of the things he had to say "They have been amazing so far. It has been a humbling, eye opening and heartwarming experience for all involved in this project. Many people from the homeless community have enjoyed a warm meal while experiencing entertainment at a level that they may have never experienced before. The performances taking place in such public space has also drawn people in to come and dance and connect. The biggest thing for us is seeing people from completely different backgrounds all getting along and enjoying themselves"

Breaking Bread Community Development serve meals all week long, but we invite the public to join our Friday Sessions so that there is a genuine feeling of community and well-being, and a lot of caring for one another. We're blessed to call Observatory our home, and it's home to our interns and volunteers for the duration of their stay with us.

See you all next Friday!
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