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Dance teacher sets up new charity in Kenya
A DANCE teacher who helped raise more than £20,000 for Aids orphans in Kenya has organised a new charity event to generate even more cash.
Six years ago Sarah Johnson travelled to Africa to see first hand the plight of Aids orphans in Nairobi.
Sarah first flew out to visit the By Grace Orphanage in 2004. A lack of money meant the school, which housed 350 orphans , faced closure.
Since then, she has visited Africa twice and helped raise 21,000. She is now organising a ball on September 4 (8pm-1am) at the Town Hall, in a bid to pay for the children's medical and dentist bills.
Award-winning London DJ, Warren Easterman will be providing tunes throughout the evening which will include a special dance demo from 2009 BritRock Freestyle & Spotlight Champions Debbie Pole and John Symons.Guests will also be treated to a group jive punters' performance.
The jive instructor became involved with the By Grace orphanage following a chance encounter with Seaford business woman, Yvonne Salmi, the owner of the Trek nightclub in Seaford.
"I teach dance and I was looking for looking for a venue for a dance class so I rang up the owner of the Trek night club. She said, 'I don't want the money, I want it to go to this orphanage in Africa."
Sarah began to donate 40 a week from her dance classes to the orphanage as well as raising 1,000 with a charity dance calendar.
"We paid for water and sewage to be installed and electricity bills and they didn't get shut down," she said. "When local businesses and banks realised the orphanage was not going to close down, they began to get involved and donate money."
With the help of fellow aid workers including Leila de Bruyne, the orphanage branched out, opening another school in the in the village of Jabini near Kinangop in the Aberdare mountains two hours from Nairobi.
Expanding numbers mean the charity wants to build a more permanent school in the village where the adults from the village can retrain and do evening classes.
Tickets 10/12 are available online at www.modernjive.biz
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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