(This article was first published in Toto Magazine on July 27, 2022)
By Ritah Mukasa
Hyperz Kids Africa is a children entertainment group located in Munyonyo, a Kampala suburb.
The group has 35 members who include former street children, orphans and those abandoned by their parents. The children are aged between three and 19 years.
Some of the children are dancers, others footballers, musicians and some acrobatics. They perform at functions for a fee.
The group is headed by Moses Butindo whom the children call Dad Coach.
After rescuing them from the streets, Dad Butindo takes the children to school, buys them clothes, pays their fees and feeds them.
One of the children, Marvin Sserunjogi, says, the group started in 2013. He had escaped from his parents’ home in Makindye and gone to live on the streets.
Sserunjogi made three friends. They used to go together to Katwe football pitch where they found Butindo training. He was a good footballer and they admired him. They later befriended him and became his children.
Butindo discovered the boys were talented. Since they were out of school, he trained them in dance and acrobatics.
They later started performing for different people at a fee. Butindo used the money to take the boys back to school.
The children encouraged their friends to get off the streets and join them. The group kept growing and now they are 35 children. Among them is popular child rapper Muhammad Mukooza, whose stage name is Kapiripiiti.
They are disciplined
The children are trained to dance, sing and perform. However, their father is also strict on discipline.
They wake up before 6:00am, exchange greetings and gather for prayers before making their beds. They are helped by Auntie Pheobe Tuyishimire.
Thereafter, as some wash utensils, others clean the house and sweep the compound.
When they are done, they bathe, take breakfast and get prepared for school. Their father drops them at school in a van and he picks them in the evening. They go to Munyonyo Parents Primary School.
Indiscipline is not tolerated in this home. Fighting, quarrelling, stealing and abusing others is punishable. The children are also not supposed to move out or eat outside their home. When one misbehaves, they are warned. If they do the offense again, their father calls all children for a meeting and they decide on how to punish the undisciplined member.
