Our Children Heritage (of South Africa)

For years many a South African in need has received help from Rev. Leshey Paynter at the Lutheran Church on Concord Avenue near Bloor Street in Toronto’s west end. For most of those years the church basement has bustled with activities on Saturday afternoons while a group of South African children, with their families, continued to maintain their cultural traditions of singing, dance, theatre, games for the children and even some good home cooking. Paynter’s Church has indeed become an oasis of South African culture

For the past three years the group has been teaching and developing the famous Gumboot Dance. The Gumboot Dance is the creation of mine workers in South Africa who use their rubber boots to create rhythmic patterns of dance and song.

Performances in 1999 have included South African Freedom Day celebrations and they will a commemoration for those that died in the struggle for freedom in South Africa, held on June 16th to mark the Sharpeville massacre of 1964 and Soweto Riots of 1976.

The group performed at AfroFest in 1999.