USHER HALL CONCERT WILL RAISE MONEY FOR HAITI EARTHQUAKE ORPHANS
Tom Allan
guardian.co.uk
Thursday 13 May 2010 11.40 BST
Conan-Doyle themed event featuring Ami Batikian on the Sherlock Violin
will boost aid efforts of SOS Children
As relief work continues in post-earthquake Haiti, a special concert
will be held this Saturday at Usher Hall to raise money for SOS
Children, one of the charities involved in the country’s rebuilding
process.
SOS Children is the world’s largest charity for orphaned and abandoned
children, and runs over 500 children’s villages in 124 countries. It
already had an orphan’s village in Haiti before the quake, which
fortunately survived unharmed. But the charity’s community fundraising
coordinator, Mary Pountain, says the operation will need to expand
because the village has been inundated with orphans and children
separated from their families since the disaster.
Interview with Mary Pountain and Dr B Hauffe A further insight into
Haiti’s plight was offered by an Edinburgh GP who recently went to
the country to work with the emergency aid organisation Medecins Sans
Frontieres. Dr B Hauffe described what it was like working in a tented
hospital in the slum area of Port du Soleil, what motivated her to
volunteer, and reflected on the contrast with her work in Edinburgh.
The Usher Hall concert will belatedly mark the 150th anniversary
of the birth of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the fictional
detective Sherlock Holmes, and will feature the Armenian violinist
Ani Batikian on the Sherlock Violin. The instrument was made last
year by Edinburgh violin maker Steve Burnett, who used the wood of
a 170-year-old sycamore which grew in the garden of Conan Doyle’s
childhood home. Below you can see a video of Batikian playing the
violin in the Edinburgh Botanical Gardens.