The orphans and street children from the dance group Hyperskids Africa made themselves known through social media. Now this is how they earn their school fees.
Have fun while you train: Hyperskids in Kampala, Uganda Photo by: Simone Schlindwein
KAMPALA cup | From afar you can hear Michael Jackson's song “Billie Jean” resonating through the ghetto. Three large, heavy speakers are installed behind the black gate of a courtyard in one of the many slums in Kampala, Uganda's capital. One of them is so loud that it hurts your ears.
This doesn't bother the dozen or so children and young people who are in this backyard. Wearing dirty, torn clothes and flip-flops, they practice wild dances and acrobatics: daring flick-flacks, twisting turns, almost impossible contortions and occasionally hilarious antics. At the same time, they skillfully kick a soccer ball back and forth that never touches the ground. Some of the children are only six or seven years old.
“Hyperskids Africa” is the name of the popular dance group in Uganda. They are now even famous all over the world. Among the fans who follow the children on social media are celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez, members of the British royal family and former Brazilian footballer Ronaldinho.
The Go-Fund-Me page for donations to the project can be found here
At the beginning of March, the Hyperskids posted a video thanking their six million followers on Instagram. There are more than four million likes on the Tiktok platform. More than 2.5 million subscribers follow them on their YouTube channel. For this, they received the YouTube Golden Award in October 2023. It was delivered to them by DHL courier in the Ugandan ghetto.
Dancing to school
At rehearsals on Saturday morning, the children seem excited. Coach Marvin Seh, dressed in jogging pants and a cap with short dreadlocks peeking out from beneath, sighs and turns off the music. “You have to concentrate!” he warns. “It starts in an hour and then everything has to be in place!”
The Hyperskids are scheduled to perform this afternoon at the opening of a shopping mall. Pre-rehearsals are carried out to ensure that the procedures are correct. Coach Seh touches his cell phone, which he uses to control the music. Michael Jackson's voice resounds through the speakers again. The twelve children line up according to their height. At Seh's hand signal, they begin.
The Hyperskids are not young dance talents, but street children who finance their school fees with their dancing skills. One of them is 12-year-old Ivan Assimwe. He is wearing tattered knee-length shorts, a faded T-shirt and flip-flops.
“I lived on the streets for a long time and collected scrap metal every day, which I sold to get some money that my mother could use to cook us something to eat,” he says. When he saw the street dance group filming a video with their cellphone for social media, “I worked up the courage and asked if I could join them,” Ivan says. After a conversation with his mother, he moved in with the Hyperskids. “I’ve been going to school ever since!” the skinny boy says happily.
FC Barcelona shared a video
Today, 55 children live in this house behind the black farm gate. There are many bunk beds in each room, even the garage has been converted into a bedroom. They are all orphans or children from poor families whose parents cannot send them to school. Most have lived on the streets for years, with no prospects for the future. This has changed radically with their dance videos, which have gone viral around the world in recent years.
Hyperskids founder Moses Butindo is currently preparing nearly ten of the children for a trip to Europe and the United States, he says. “This is the first flight for all of us,” says Butindo. “I will never forget this day in my life,” says the strong young man in a jogging suit, his eyes shining with joy.
When he posted his first ball juggling video online earlier this year, he tagged his favourite club, FC Barcelona. “And Barcelona shared our video!” He contacted the club directly and exchanged messages. The Spanish football club asked Butindo for permission to post the video on the official fan page: “We are over the moon!”
The twelve shared three mattresses on the floor of Butindo's room.
From then on, everything happened very quickly: the football club sent them jerseys to the ghetto and three weeks later they were invited to travel to Barcelona to meet the professional players and play with their youth team. Then we will move on to the United States, where the Hyperskids will participate in an international dance competition. They were also invited to this.
The founder of the orphanage.
As Coach Seh drives to the mall with ten of the children for the event, Butindo, the 26-year-old founder of the orphanage, sits in the garden and tells his story. He himself grew up on the streets. His dream as a child was to become a professional footballer and thus save his family from poverty.
But he broke his leg when he was 11 while training at Uganda's youth football academy. It was the end of his dream of having a career because he couldn't afford the expensive operation on his leg: “My friends on the street stole a phone from somewhere, sold it and used it to pay for the hospital bills,” Butindo recalls.
They then dragged him to his accommodation – an old, dilapidated building. But the wound became infected. “We thought I was dying,” Butindo said. One of his friends came up with the idea of posting a photo of his leg online with a call for donations. A Canadian who worked at the Ugandan football academy, Butindo recalled that he paid for his treatment. “When I got better, he even gave me money to rent a room where I could relax.”
To thank his friends, Moses let them all sleep in his room. The twelve shared three mattresses on the floor. During one of these nights, they came up with the idea of continuing to make money online to support themselves, says Butindo. “I had the idea of downloading music videos to imitate the dance steps.”
Contact the president
They started practicing. The Hyperskids quickly became famous in Uganda and were invited to parties and events to perform their dance routines. More and more street children joined them.
In 2016, they had their breakthrough at the national level. At that time, the Hyperskids consisted of 37 boys and girls, all of whom slept in shifts on the mattresses in Butindo’s small room. At that time, there was an election campaign in Uganda, the president was touring the country and organizing events everywhere where dance groups also performed.
So Butindo came up with the idea of dancing in front of the president. “I went to an internet café and we forged an invitation with the president’s letterhead,” says Butindo, smiling mischievously.
Butindo bought yellow T-shirts, the colour of the presidential party. They walked the eleven kilometres to the campaign rally. The soldiers checked the invitation and let them in. “When we started dancing, everyone immediately got excited. The whole crowd danced, including the ministers!” Butindo says, eyes shining.
The president then addressed the street children directly and said: “These children are very talented. But they need a bouncy castle so they don’t break all their bones.” President Yoweri Museveni ordered his assistant to get the hyperskates’ contact details so that he could buy them a bouncy castle.
Everything changed with the house.
“That was just brilliant!” Butindo exclaims. A few days later, she received a call from the presidential palace. She excitedly had to explain to the assistant that they did not need a bouncy castle, but beds and school fees. After consulting with the president, a small miracle happened, Butindo says.
They were given this house where they could all settle in and some initial money to send the children to school.
Rice and beans: that's what Butindo serves to 55 children every day Photo by: Simone Schlindwein
From then on, everything was different, says Butindo. He gets up from his chair on the porch, walks through the house and points to a wooden hut where a huge cauldron sits on a coal stove. Lunch is simmering there. He carefully lifts the lid to see if the beans are cooked.
It started to rain and the children who did not attend the event retreated to their bedrooms to rest after training.
Only a few look out of the windows and doors of the backyard to see what there is to eat. Rice and beans: that is all Butindo can serve to the 55 children every day.
Money is scarce
There is simply not enough money for more, he says. The president's entrance fee has long since been exhausted, and feeding 55 hungry stomachs, school fees, school uniforms, notebooks, pens, books – all this requires a lot of money.
Even though the children are now famous all over the world, it is never enough to meet everyone's needs, says Butindo: “We need the equivalent of about 1,500 euros a month to feed everyone, the rest goes to school fees,” she sighs. “After all, our online channels do quite well, we get money from YouTube depending on how many hours our subscribers watch our channel.”
There was no money for the gold medal. But now he has set up a donation page through which some money comes in. “However,” he says, “it is never enough to cover all the expenses.” The trip to Spain and the United States gives hope that more donations will soon arrive or that the Hyperskids will gain even more followers on social media. They can make a living from it in the future.
Every day, more street children stop in front of the farm's black gate and want to join the hyperskids, but Butindo does not have a single free bed left.