Dance Event raises charity cash
A Headington girl raised more than £5,000 for women’s rights after getting people dancing live on Zoom.
The event was organised by Niamh, U5, in aid of The Circle, a charity which campaigns for equality for women and girls and was organised to mark the International Day of the Girl.
Read Niamh’s account below.
The Circle is an organisation of women working together to achieve equality for women and girls in a fairer world. It was founded by Annie Lennox, who also personally helped us with the event. I was watching an online talk held by the Circle and at the end I asked a question about some of the feminist topics the speakers had been talking about.
That’s when the whole thing kind of kicked off, because I then got an email from their CEO, Raakhi, who asked me to co-create an event with her for International Day of the Girl. After a phone call with her, we agreed that a dance hour on Zoom would be a really fun, global and simple way to raise money for the Circle’s Women and Girls Solidarity Fund. The fund supports Irise, a project in Uganda, helping girls who have been out of school for long periods of time and who have been disproportionately affected by Covid-19.
With two other girls, we started organising the event. We had weekly Zoom calls, organised, arranged and advertised for the dance hour and made playlists, among other things.
Through The Circle, we were also able to connect with some of the girls in Uganda, and have amazing conversations with them.
Once we started pushing the event, the band ‘Now United’ also got involved and helped advertise with us, you can watch our chat with them (which now has over 138k views!!) here.
On the day, we had around 200 people on and off the Zoom call from all over the world for the dance hour.
We had lots of fun dancing and received loads of donations, taking the rough total to £5,000 and counting!
I really want to thank Raakhi and Clare at the Circle, the girls in Uganda and my new friends from the UK, Jessie and Sophia, for running the event with me, and for making it possible to support such an amazing cause.
You can still donate at the Circle website, directly to the Women and Girls Solidarity Fund here.
