Worcester school kids add a dash of 'sole' to Ndlovu Youth Choir's act

With the Ndlovu Youth Choir taking the world by storm, a group of grade 7 pupils from Worcester in the Western Cape took it upon themselves to make sure the choir's members were kitted out with some fancy footwear. 

Worcester Primary School pupils were tasked with decorating 25 pairs of Ama'Tekkie sneakers to be urgently shipped to the US so they could be worn by the breakthrough act on America's Got Talent. 

Art teacher Marno Horn said the pupils knew all about the Ndlovu Youth Choir and were “extremely excited” to help out. 

“The only thing we were told to do was that we had to decorate them in the same pink and green colours that they were going to wear in their performance,” he said. “They looked really nice when they were painted.

“They also wrote messages in the inside of the sole. They mentioned their names and the choir personally thanked them.”

Ama'Tekkie representative Dan Barnard said he was inspired by the choir's audition, which went viral in July after it received a standing ovation from the show's audience. 

“We wanted to wish them well by sending them some shoes to wear off-stage,” he said. 

“One thing lead to another and the next thing we planned to help them design a tekkie to wear during their next performance.

“The factory couldn’t do the shoes in just two weeks, though. We have great connections with the school and needed their help to do the decorations.”

Barnard said the end result was better than he expected and that the children did an “awesome job”. 

“We were very impressed. They didn’t go over the lines and kept it neat. They are a really cool bunch of kids,” he said.

Members of the choir paid a special tribute to the pupils in a “thank you” video.