A DANCE school teacher will be using her art to raise funds to fight hunger in countries affected by war, famine and natural disasters.
Viv Kibble who runs Pointe The Way Ballet School in Solihull, Leamington and Warwick Academy of Dance has been inspired to continue fundraising for Coventry-based charity Feed The Hungry following a trip to Africa with her husband, Gavin.
Together the pair brought the gift of dance to hundreds of children in Kenya and Zambia who in turn taught her some special dance moves.
And now Viv is planning to donate proceeds from her next dance show this summer.
The money will go towards the £1,300 needed to build a new water tower in Mazabuka – the tower’s solar-powered pump which will enable residents to more easily access fresh water.
Viv said: “We learned some Afrobeat. From my perspective, we jumped in and learned from them first. I taught them how to do a bit of Jive and Freestyle and I took my tap shoes along, something they’d never seen before.
“We just had a lot of fun in what is quite a difficult situation. It was their school holiday, so we had boys and girls there from the area who came in and did morning activities and then get fed, and went home.
“My main take away from Zambia was that you can’t fix things but you can help people from within to grow what they’ve got. The heart to see things improve is definitely there, which is lovely, and you can feel there’s a sense that they want to better themselves and improve life for the kids. It’s a great ethos.”
The visits to Kenya and Zambia through Feed The Hungry, also saw them introduced for the first time, to the new £30,000 school block funded by Gavin’s 200-mile trek between St Bees Head in Lancashire and Robin Hood Bay in Yorkshire, last May.
The children at Lukkamano School in Mazabuka, Zambia, come from very poor homes. Some of these children, orphaned by the AIDS pandemic, live with relatives for whom putting food on the table is a continual challenge.
Such are the numbers of children at the school that teaching time for each child had been halved due to lack of space and facilities. But the new “Gavin Kibble” Block, opened in August last year, means that an additional 200 students can now be accommodated, meeting the criteria to qualify for additional Government funding of teachers.
Gavin Kibble, chief executive of Feed The Hungry, said: “Up to now they had struggled to provide full time education for the children because they were so limited by the space they had.
“It was quite humbling to see the new school block. The reality of connecting something that was quite a challenge for me into something of benefit to so many children, not just for this generation but for generations to come, made it all worthwhile.
“It was a huge privilege to meet the children, parents and teachers and be able to dance with the children that were benefiting from the additional educational facilities.”
Last month’s trip, which ended in Mazabuka, brought the couple into contact with more than 300 children between the ages of five and 21.
As well as delivering dance workshops, they also took the opportunity to distribute food parcels and handover vital medical equipment and medicines and watched the children take part in some sporting activities.
Feed The Hungry is an international Christian humanitarian organisation committed to fighting hunger due to poverty, war, famine and natural disasters. The charity works to reduce world hunger by establishing feeding programmes and supporting disaster relief.
With its partner organisations, since 1987, Feed The Hungry have globally assisted in feeding over 626,000 children every day in 27 countries.
Partners include: It Works Netherland, Red Wings UAE and UK, Rise Against Hunger, Rotary UK and Ireland and various local businesses, churches and individuals.
