In July 2007a BBC concert showcased the Buskaid Soweto String Ensemble at a hall in London. The performance ended to a big round of applause. Among the crowd was 41-year-old Dr Luis Dias. He had heard of this chorus and knew it consisted of children from South Africa's poorest towns, but had never seen them performing live.
Born in 1966 to a family of Goan doctors, Dias followed in his family's foot steps, but he had a great passion for music. In 1998he went to work in London. After watching the Buskaid performance, Dias began to explore the possibility of starting a similar effort for disadvantaged children in India.
In 2008 he and his wife gave up their comfortable life in the UK and returned to their home in Panjim, Goa. In just one year the couple founded Child's Play In- dia Foundation. Realizing that setting up the project and teaching music would be a full-time effort, Dias abandoned his medical career and became a poorly paid music teacher.
Yet, it was not easy getting such an enterprise off the ground. Aside from get-ting the necessary fund it was important to find a place that would safely house the children teachers and equipment. They eventually found the perfect partner, a woman behind Hamara School, a shelter for disadvantaged children in Panjim. From these difficult beginnings, Child's Play gradually grew. Child's Play puts on at least two concerts a year to which the children's families and general public are invited. The parents, many of whom are street-side vendors(小贩), had never imagined that their children would find a place on center stage, appreciated and applauded by a wildly enthusiastic audience.
