Dance Marathon

                The Dance Marathon on November 23rd was a huge success!  Thank you so much to those of who donated money and those who are trying to organize your own Dance Marathon in the states.  Overall, the Youth Development Committee was able to raise just under $5,000 to support volunteer projects in Burkina.  This money is going to go a long way in supporting volunteer projects in their communities.  This was the first dance marathon in Burkina and after seeing how successful this was there will be more to come.

Motivational Speaker

                The dance marathon was exhausting, informative, and so much fun.   With the help of volunteers and host country nationals from Sapouy, the location of the event, the children had a great time dancing and gaining information.  Seventy-nine students from five different schools came to the event.  Each school was assigned a color and the kids came decked out in their colors.

The event started at 2:00pm with team chants and songs in order to get the students excited for the rest of the day. My role during the dance marathon was team leader for the green team.  Throughout the night I organized the kids from one activity to another and keep the spirits up when as the kids got tired.  At the event we had two motivational speakers, three sensibilizations on critical thinking, nutrition, and HIV/AIDS, and time to dance.  Dancing was a great way for both the volunteers and children to exchange their culture.  The volunteers led dances such as the limbo and choreographed routines.  One of the choreographed routines was a dance competition between the teams.  The dance was taught and then each team had about five minutes to learn the dance.  Somehow my team won.  This was/is still a surprise to me because I also learned the dance at the same time, and for those of you who have seen my skills, you understand.  During the past seven months I have learned a lot about myself and I think hearing that I can dance from a bunch of kids (who dance really well) was the most surprising. At 8:30pm the marathon came to an end and the students went home exhausted and with new skills and information that will hopefully be helpful in their futures.