Leamington and Warwick dance school teacher brings her dance lessons to African children

The five-day trip to Kenya and Zambia through Christian humanitarian organisation Feed The Hungry, also inspired Viv Kibble who runs Pointe The Way Ballet School at Leamington and Warwick Academy of Dance, to continue the fundraising.

Now she 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.

Speaking about her visit to Africa, 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.”

She added: “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 to the new £30,000 school block.

The new block was fundraising efforts by Viv’s husband, Gavin Kibble who is also the CEO of Feed The Hungry. Last year, Gavin took on a 200-mile trek between St Bees Head in Lancashire and Robin Hood Bay in Yorkshire to help raise the money.

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, CEO of Feed The Hungry, based in Coventry, 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 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 more than 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.

Gavin already has his sights set on the next fundraising target. He said: “This is the development of a long-term relationship with Lukkomano School. Every time we go over there you see opportunity to carry on developing.

"For example, they also need a technical room with IT facilities to be able to offer the children IT education.

“And they need to buy land locally so they can expand the remit of the school because they have more demand for school places than they’re actually able to deal with.”

The two dance shows will place at 3pm and 6pm on July 6 at Bridge House Theatre in Warwick and tickets are available from: https://lwad.co.uk/

For more information about Feed The Hungry go to: https://feedthehungry.org.uk/