In March 2002, at the Cullinan Diamond Mine, situated northeast of Pretoria, South Africa, Lona Engelbrecht, PRISE Co-ordinator, brought together of a group of employees from the mine to enact safety topics for the mine workers. This was instead of bringing in Industrial theatre companies from Johannesburg. Their shows were so successful that they decided to focus on singing, rather than acting, as they felt music had a greater impact. As their reputation spread they were asked to perform at more and more local community events and decided to call themselves The Diamond Choir

In February 2005, Jane Cox, a member of the Worcester Choir, made contact with the group, while visiting relatives in South Africa. Her brief but wonderful experience of singing with them inspired the the UK choirs to consider the possibility of raising funds to finance a visit to the UK. An invitation was sent to The Diamond Choir, inviting them for a 2 week visit in July 2006.

All three choirs set about the huge job of  raising  funds to bring  the  choir  over. The

aim of the project was to enable the choirs to share their music, learn from each others culture and to build bridges of friendship across the world. It was hoped that the English choirs would learn how to sing South African songs with more authenticity and maybe even learn to dance! In December 2005 we received the wonderful news that the De Beers Group who at that time owned the mine, had decided to pay for the choirs flights.

In April 2006 Hilary and Jane travelled to Cullinan to meet the choir, talk to mine officials about the visit and visit various community projects in Cullinan that we could raise funds for during the UK visit.