In 2019, 60% of educate.’s funding came from fundraising activities. With the coronavirus lockdown preventing us from physically getting together for our usual fundraising events, this whole section of our funding has been temporarily on hold. Luckily, educate.’s events team have been astonishingly creative and persistent in coming up with creative ways to continue bringing our community together and raising funds for our ongoing projects and programmes, as well as COVID-relief projects such as food packages – all online!
From live yoga to salsa dancing, a singing workshop, a bachata class, and soon a silent disco, our live events have been able to bring together our community of volunteers, donors and supporters across the world to continue making sure that meaningful learning opportunities can carry on being championed for the children and young people across our communities in Honduras.
Live Yoga
Our virtual adventure started with a relaxing yoga session hosted by Agnieszka Brzozowska, also known as Aga, a Polish teacher with experience in yoga and contemporary dance. We were all new to lockdowns and shared the Live yoga classes to create the opportunity for our community to come together, breathe and support each other during the quarantine.
The first Live class was a huge success, both in terms of donations and relaxation, and we have been offering different sessions since then. Additionally, we had the opportunity to partner with a Scottish-Australian yoga instructor based in Milan (Italy), Stephanie Lewis. She’s got a lovely online yogi’s community that joined us during the #yoga4educatechallenge while Stephanie was sharing her techniques and knowledge online.
Both teachers were great at sharing their energies and supporting our scholarship programs and we’re looking forward to continuing collaborating in the future! If you’re curious and want to try some of these relaxing sessions, feel free to visit our Youtube events channel for the recordings, and to support our Emergency Campaign on Tiltify.
Salsa Dancing with Mocitos Dance School
For our Fiesta Latinas in the past, a substantial component was a (by now traditional) Salsa Workshop. For this, we have often cooperated with Mocitos Dance School Amsterdam. We were more than happy when Luis agreed to teach again – this time online! With his captivating energy and contagiously good mood, his classes are a lot of fun and everyone can join. At the same time, he integrated educate.’s message effortlessly into his workshop and we want to thank everyone who donated!
The technical set up for this livestream was as professional as never before – DJ Kasanoba, the muscial mastermind behind the class, created an amazing experience for the viewer, with multiple cameras, and music that makes you move right away.
Luis taught us basic steps and some tricky variations, open for every level to join. After only half an hour, you could find yourself dancing a great choreography – with a partner or alone, this did not matter. What counted was to have fun!
It was a delight to see how Luis’s enthusiasm and entertaining skill brought the party to everyone’s home. Did you have no time to attend? No worries – you can watch the full Salsa Class with Mocitos Dance School and DJ Kasanoba on our YouTube Channel.
A Live Singing Circle!
In early May we had a live singing workshop, hosted by Beth Aggett and Anne Brattinga from Zangschool Singing Circle in Amsterdam. Through a Zoom meeting, we came together to learn an all-time favorite by the legendary Bill Withers: Lovely Day, the perfect song to put a smile on our faces in times of social distancing.
After a short introduction and warm up, Beth led us through the arrangement of the song. Anne, founder of the Singing School, stepped into the role of a student learning the different harmonies and asking the questions on our behalf. Some participants were willing to demonstrate what we had just learned, others preferred to remain muted. No one was forced to face their stage fright in this session. Throughout the entire workshop, our lovely singing teachers kept us engaged, entertained and simply in a good mood. When having a look at the different screens, all you could see were smiling faces. After a little more than an hour, we had come to an end and it seemed as if a lot of us would have liked to keep singing!
Beth and Anne also offered an incentive for people to donate, offering giving away one group lesson and one private lesson with Anne to two randomly selected donors.
We could not be more grateful for their help in creating this unique online event. We received a lot of positive feedback and therefore can honestly say it was a success. And it didn;t end there! We asked every participant to film themselves singing the song and send it to us, after which Beth compiled all the videos to create a wonderful music video for our community. Check it out!
Bachata with Salsa Lovers Worldwide
Inspired by our past musical events and the great vibes during the singing and dancing lessons, we shared our idea of dancing all around the world to support young students in Honduras with Salsa Lovers Worldwide (SLW). They were in love with the idea, and we enjoyed every minute of this amazing next collaboration.
This event was dedicated to Tania Caballero, one of our outstanding scholarship students who is on her way to graduate as an Industrial Engineer. SLW, their amazing dancing community spanning 15 countries, and their wonderful instructor Marielle blew us away with an inspiring introduction to educate. and a workshop filled with fun bachata choreography and Marielle’s out-of-this-world hips moves.
It was a fun and rewarding experience. We loved sharing bachata tips and songs with everyone while preparing for the class, and we were happy to see how many of you shared and supported Tania in her third year of her studies.
NEXT UP: A Silent Disco! Join us on June 26
We would love for you to join us for our next live event: a silent disco on June 26th!
We’ll have three channels, each with it’s own DJ and unique music style, and once again all donations go towards supporting our ongoing programmes in Honduras.
Check out the Facebook page here for all the details, and don’t forget to invite your friends!
You can also continue to donate to our emergency campaign here to support our ongoing work in Honduras.
By Elke Japke, Orielsy Blanco and Marieke Knorz
educate. 