Thank you Birmingham Royal Ballet

Birmingham Royal Ballet's Studios

(c) 2016 Jane Lambert: all rights reserved

As readers know, one of my interests is Africa.  Ever since I first heard of it, I have been beating the drum for Mike Wamaya's class in the Kibera district of Nairobi.  In Recognition for the Kibera Ballet Class 9 Jan 2017 I reported that the mainstream media had begun to take an interest in those students. The Guardian had posted a film about a film about them to its Facebook page and the Huffington Post had run a feature on them.

The Birmingham Royal Ballet saw this publicity and decided to help. Here's what they said in an email that they circulated earlier today:

"We have recently been inspired by an article from The Guardian about a ballet school in Kibera, Nairobi; a 'slum' home to 700,000 people. The young dancers there mainly learn to dance barefoot and rely on donated shoes to learn advanced techniques that can be used in performance. We were incredibly moved and inspired by their talent and hard work, so we rounded up as many pointe shoes as we could to send over via Anno's Africa with our best wishes and warmest compliments on their work."

I think that's lovely.  That news really cheered me up.

I don't know whether Mike's students have all the pointe shoes they well need other things.  Scholarships to train abroad as Joel Kioko has done is one possibility,  I shall follow this story like a terrier and report anything new.