More than £7,000 has been raised for an orphanage in Kenya through a charity single and video based on the 1984 Band Aid release Do They Know It’s Christmas?

A team from the Community Waffle House in Axminster developed and performed the song to help the Gideons Orphanage in Ramba, an area badly hit by the effects of the Covid pandemic.

One of the Waffle House’s directors, Sophie McLachlan, is also the co-founder of the charity Awaken Love for Africa, which supports the orphanage. When she told colleagues Chelsea and Mike about the severe food shortages in Ramba, following job losses caused by the pandemic, they decided to recreate the Band Aid initiative that was sparked by the 1984 famine in Ethiopia.

Mike said: “Sophie's work with the Gideons has really touched my heart and when Chelsea suggested the we should record our own version of Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas? under the name of Waffle Aid, I took the idea, assembled a team from our community and we ran with it”.

The resulting video shows the team of Waffle House staff, volunteers, friends and supporters performing the song in Band Aid style, intercut with footage of children from the Gideons orphanage.

Sophie McLachlan, who visited the orphanage after almost two years of absence because of the Covid travel restrictions, said: “Everyone here is so excited to be in a ‘real-life’ music video! Over the years we have built up an amazing relationship between the community in East-Devon and the community here at Gideons and this honestly couldn’t come at a better time, as we currently have no food in the storeroom”.

The single and video were released via social media on Friday, December 10. The fundraising target was £10,000 to buy all 800 orphanage children a Christmas lunch, provide enough food for the next two weeks, and send food parcels to 500 elderly and extremely poor people in the Ramba community.

In the event, more than £7,000 was raised, and was sent to the orphanage in time for the Christmas celebrations.

The video can be viewed on YouTube and downloaded from Bandcamp.