Movema have engaged 100,000 people in world dance activity over the past 15 years, including the most underserved and vulnerable people in our communities including children, people experiencing mental health issues and vulnerable migrants.
Our mission is to ensure world dance is celebrated and enables people to create art, improve their health and wellbeing, and heal divisions in and between communities.
Due to austerity, ongoing COVID repercussions and the cost of living crisis, competition for funding is higher than ever before. Along with the pressures of responding to increasingly frequent, racially motivated and gender-based violence in our communities we are really struggling to continue our work.
We have always been proud to earn around 50% of our income through our varied services (way more than the industry average), this money has been chanelled into developing our award-winning, life-changing programmes. But cuts to public services have meant our contracts and bookings in health and education have been axed and our customers have less available income to attend classes. Despite major cuts to our expenditure we operated at a loss last year. We are hopeful that more funds will be directed back in to our communities but we expect we won't see the effects of this for some time yet.
At the same time our communities are telling us they need more of our work to address the lack of:
- activities in schools that tackle racism in a fun and engaging way
- fun activities where participants, especially women and vulnerable migrants, can feel safe and welcome
- opportunities to meet people, build community, break the false narratives in the media and find out about other support services.
- opportunities to build skills, confidence and self-esteem and develop personally
To keep our small but incredibly impactful charity going through this tough time we aim to raise £5,000* in our 15th Birthday year!
This money will support us to continue our work, especially;
- projects in Bristol for families in Adverse Childhood Settings in an area of high knife crime and unemployment.
- work with women refugees, asylum seekers and vulnerable migrants, a group who suffer the worst health and social inequalities in UK society.
- Continue to train diverse artists, with lived experience of the barriers faced by our participants.
- Bringing our diverse communities together in joyous events, celebrating diversity and tackling the divisions in our society.
How you can play your part
There are four simple ways to help us reach our target, and make this project a reality.
1. Donate to us. Don’t delay if you’re going to support us because momentum is key to our success!
2. Spread the word. Share our project on your social media pages and tell the world to get behind us! The more people we reach, the more support we will get.
3. Offer rewards. Get involved if you are a local business by donating things we can offer to our supporters. We will give you a shout out!
4. Fundraise for us. If you want to run your own fundraiser – maybe a sponsored activity or similar – use the 'contact project' button at the top of our page to let us know. Setting up your own page only takes a few minutes and you won’t need any bank details. Just a fun idea!
*All funds raised will be kept by Movema, even if we don't reach this target. Crowdfunder also allows us to 'stretch' this target if we reach it. This crowdfunder runs for 15 weeks (until 21st April) but we will leave it open for donations after this date.