DanceSyndrome COVID19 Update – September 2020: As you probably know, the DanceSyndrome team have been very busy over the last six months. In March we closed our indoor dance sessions and hoped that we would return in late April. Here we are, more than 7 months later, still planning a safe return.
This update will give you all the information that you need about our continuing online dance sessions, forthcoming outdoor dance sessions and potential indoor sessions.
Online Dance Sessions
We are so glad that people are enjoying this new way of dancing! Because there is so much demand from across the UK we want to try and offer as many different opportunities for our participants as we can and we have some new sessions that are now enrolling.
Wake N Dance
A wake up dance session every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 10:00am. Start the day with an upbeat dance session guaranteed to make you smile. This 30 minute session will get you ready for the day ahead. Thanks to funding, these sessions are FREE! You don’t need to attend every day, just choose the days that suit you. You only need to sign up once, then drop in when you like! Sign up here: https://bit.ly/WakeNDance
Contemporary Dance Monday 11am
A new style class looking at Contemporary Dance technique. This is a block of 6 sessions and in each session you will practice a contemporary dance routine which will be performed via video in the last session. Starts Monday 2nd November. 6 sessions costs £15 (£2.50 per session). You can sign up here: https://bit.ly/ContemporaryZoom
Street Dance Monday 1pm
The first block of 6 sessions has been a real success and at the request of the participants we are putting on a second block. This starts on 3rd August for 6 more weeks. You don’t need to have done the first block to join in, it’s suitable for all levels and no experience is necessary. Starts Monday 2nd November. 6 sessions costs £15 (£2.50 per session). You can sign up here: https://bit.ly/ZoomStreetDance
NEW DAY/TIME – Everybody Dance Tuesdays at 2pm
Our inclusive community dance workshops have been adapted for Zoom. Each session is brought to you by a different pair of leaders, one with a learning disability and one without a disability. Working together they deliver a fun, accessible and inclusive dance and fitness session for anyone who wants to get moving and have a good time. The sessions include both upbeat and gentle dance, together with movement to music, that can be adapted to meet your own needs. £2.50 per week. Find details of the next session here: https://dancesyndrome.co.uk/events/
Funk out on Zoom Tuesdays at 7pm
At the end of a busy day, Funk Out with Dave and Helen! A free 30 minute dance workout session that will help you end the day the right way! We hope to see lots of new faces at this new evening session, please join us: http://bit.ly/DSFunkOut
Rave with Dave & Bex
Our Rave with Dave & Bex sessions have been so much fun! Everyone has really risen to the challenge and the performance is going to be amazing! If you would like to watch the performance live, please sign up for free tickets on this link: https://bit.ly/RavePerformance
A new Christmas themed block of sessions will be starting on 5th November. If you’d like to join us, please sign up here: https://bit.ly/RaveWithDave
NEW DAY/TIME – Infant Dance led by Max and Cristina – Saturday 10:45am
Max is our youngest Dance Leader at just 3 years old! Join him and his mum Cristina for this fun movement to music session. Max decides the moves and your children can join in and copy him or do their own thing. Children of all ages are welcome, but the session is aimed at pre-school aged children. The session is free thanks to funding. Sign up here: https://bit.ly/DSinfants
YouTube
A new YouTube session will now be released every Thursday and you can still access previous sessions too on this link: https://bit.ly/DanceSyndromeYouTube
Indoor dance in community venues
A phased return to indoor dance sessions has been planned by our team.
When the time is right, the first phase of our return will be restarting sessions at Plungington Community Centre in Preston and St Mary’s Centre in Clitheroe. The centres are our largest community venues and have both been classified as COVID secure. Extensive risk assessments have been completed and adaptations have been made to ensure the sessions will be safe. If you are usually a participant at these sessions we should have contacted you about this to see how you feel about it, but you are always welcome to get in touch via info@dancesyndrome.co.uk to discuss any questions you may have.
If you usually attend one of our other community sessions, we are still looking at ways to return safely to indoor dancing in your area. We will contact you as soon as we are able to return so that we can give you the information you will need before returning.
In the meantime, there may be outdoor dance opportunities coming in your area soon or you are welcome to join in any of our online sessions.
Outdoor Dance
We have been running a trial of small outdoor dance sessions in MIller Park in Preston for our Create & Connect group members. When the weather has been kind, these sessions have been really successful! As a result, we have secured funding from Sport England’s Tackling Inequalities Fund and the Comic Relief Community Fund (England) to enable us to offer more outdoor dance sessions to enable people to get out of the house and do some dancing, while they wait for a return to indoor dancing.
If you know of a group of people who may be interested in an outdoor dance session elsewhere in Lancashire, please get in touch via dance@dancesyndrome.co.uk
Whatever way you choose to dance, we hope to see you at one of our sessions soon. In the meantime, please contact us if you have any questions.
Thank you for your support throughout 2020!
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Local charity DanceSyndrome is thrilled to have received a grant of £9,928 to support outdoor dance sessions delivered by Dance Leaders with learning disabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Funding from the Tackling Inequalities Fund (National Lottery funding from Sport England) will enable us to offer outdoor dance sessions to bridge the gap between online dancing via Zoom, which has been the core activity for most of 2020, and safely returning to indoor dancing.
The Tackling Inequalities Fund exists to help to reduce the negative impact of coronavirus and the widening of the inequalities in sport and physical activity. Research by Sport England at the start of the pandemic showed that certain groups of people were being disproportionately affected by the crisis and it was significantly impacting their ability to be physically active.
DanceSyndrome supports many vulnerable adults across Lancashire who are currently shielding due to the COVID-19 outbreak. We are hoping be able to offer a phased return to indoor community dance sessions in community centres soon after closing suddenly in March. We had to adapt quickly with a view to online sessions becoming the norm for most of 2020. The DanceSyndrome team wanted to limit the impact of isolation on participants and decided to take the workshops online using Facebook, YouTube and Zoom to bring the sessions to regular participants and anyone else who wanted to use them to stay active at home during isolation.
The National Lottery funding from Sport England will enable us to respond to the current situation by offering outdoor dance workshops for those who have barriers to participating online and are not able to return to indoor sessions yet. The aim is to ensure that participants of all ages and abilities can still access creative, physical activity in one form or another. The sessions will be co-led by Dance Leaders with a learning disability to demonstrate the importance of providing inclusive opportunities for people with learning disabilities to be visible leaders, to have their voices heard on important issues, to follow their dreams and succeed in their ambitions.
DanceSyndrome MD Dawn Vickers said, “As a small local charity, DanceSyndrome has had to adapt quickly and creatively at every stage of the pandemic and funding like this has enabled us to do that. Many of our participants face barriers in all aspects of their life and at DanceSyndrome we pride ourselves on removing as many of those barriers as we can. We know many people have found it difficult to use the technology needed to dance online and may still not feel comfortable going back to indoor sessions because they are vulnerable. We need to make sure those people aren’t excluded and can still access physical dance activities to help them maintain good physical and mental health. We are thrilled that we are able to expand this vital work thanks to this funding!”
If you would like to find out more about about our online sessions please visit the Events page on our website. If you would like more information about our outdoor dance sessions, please Contact Us.
DanceSyndrome has been awarded a £4,000 grant from the Comic Relief Community Fund (England).
The funding will enable DanceSyndrome to respond to the current situation by offering dance workshops in the Preston area. The aim is to ensure that participants of all ages and abilities can still access creative, physical activity in one form or another. There will be a combination of indoor, outdoor and online dance sessions on offer so that people can choose the session that they are most comfortable with. The sessions will be co-led by Dance Leaders with a learning disability to demonstrate the importance of providing inclusive opportunities for people with learning disabilities to be visible leaders, to have their voices heard on important issues, to follow their dreams and succeed in their ambitions.
The Comic Relief Community Fund (England) invests in grassroots community-led organisations to bring about lasting change and legacy through projects that support Comic Relief’s themes: Children Survive & Thrive; Fighting for Gender Justice; A Safe Place to Be; and Mental Health Matters.
Grants of up to £4,000 are available to strengthen local organisations to give with skills and advice to drive community projects forward, as well as providing the necessary funding and support that groups need to kick-start new initiatives.
DanceSyndrome MD Dawn Vickers said, “As a small local charity, DanceSyndrome has had to adapt quickly and creatively at every stage of the pandemic and funding like this has enabled us to do that. Many of our participants face barriers in all aspects of their life and at DanceSyndrome we pride ourselves on removing as many of those barriers as we can. We know many people have found it difficult to use the technology needed to dance online and may still not feel comfortable going back to indoor sessions because they are vulnerable. We need to make sure that nobody is excluded and everyone who wants to can still access physical dance activities in a format that works for them, to help them maintain good physical and mental health. We are thrilled that we are able to expand this vital work thanks to this funding!”
The Comic Relief Community Fund (England) is administered by the national community charity, Groundwork.
Graham Duxbury, national CEO of Groundwork, said “Comic Relief Community Fund (England) contributes funds to community projects being delivered by grassroots organisations and we’re delighted to support this project. The diversity of projects that are being funded shows that local communities have a passion to create something great in their area.”
To find out more about the sessions that are available, please visit the Events page on our website.
DanceSyndrome Founder Jen Blackwell was thrilled to discover she had been chosen as an EVA Star by local networking group Pink Link Ladies.
Pink Link run an annual awards ceremony for business women in the North West called the EVA’s. This year they were forced to do things differently because of lockdown, so to celebrate their tenth year they are celebrating ten EVA Stars. These are ladies who have won EVA’s in the past and have really stood out as superstars!
Jen won the Inspirational Woman of the Year Award at the 2015 EVA’s and was thrilled to be recognised again as an EVA Star!
Introducing our second EVA Star – the fabulous Jen Blackwell, Founder of @DanceSyndrome
Discover more about Jen – plus all the latest news from #EVAS10 – in our latest newsletter: https://t.co/DrkcAnDQ9A#womeninbusiness #awards pic.twitter.com/VbjYlfyJaE— The EVAs (@Eva_Awards) September 6, 2020
This video shows Jen’s reaction when her mum Sue told her the exciting news:
Sue sharing the news with Jen – she’s an @Eva_Awards star! #love and #respect abound at @DanceSyndrome #inclusion is what we do every step of the way #dance is our language! Feeling so incredibly #valued #loved #welcome #wanted #abilitynotdisability #DownSyndrome pic.twitter.com/wQBcon4Os1
— DanceSyndrome (@DanceSyndrome) September 4, 2020
You can read Jen’s full EVA story here: https://www.enterprisevisionawards.co.uk/winners/eva-stars/
If you’re inspired by Jen’s amazing story and would like to support her charity in the future, please consider donating via the form below.
DanceSyndrome is thrilled to have received a grant of £39,750 from The National Lottery Community Fund to support the work of our Dance Leaders with learning disabilities during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Funding from the Coronavirus Community Support Fund, distributed by The National Lottery Community Fund on behalf of the Government, will enable us to continue to offer weekly Zoom dance sessions for both adults and children, with and without disabilities. We also hope to build provision by offering bespoke dance sessions for schools, universities and businesses. The funding will also support us as we consider the challenge of safely returning to face-to-face dance sessions in the community. Social distancing and changing government guidelines mean that dance sessions will need to be continually adapted as guidance changes over the coming months and the funding will support us to do this successfully.
DanceSyndrome supports many vulnerable adults across Lancashire who are currently shielding due to the COVID-19 outbreak. We are hoping be able to return to offering community dance sessions in community centres from September onwards after closing suddenly in March, just before lockdown started. We had to adapt quickly and with a view to online sessions becoming the norm for most of 2020. The DanceSyndrome team wanted to limit the impact of isolation on participants and continue to make them feel a part of our “dancing family”. We decided to take the workshops online using Facebook, YouTube and Zoom to bring the sessions to regular participants and anyone else who wanted to use them to stay active at home during isolation. The Facebook and YouTube sessions are free to access and the Zoom sessions have a low charge of £2.50.
The funding provided by The National Lottery Community Fund is allowing DanceSyndrome to respond to the current situation by continuing online dance workshops for those who are not able to return to the community yet, as well as offering sessions that will bridge the gap between the online sessions and regular group workshops in community venues – such as outdoor dance sessions for small groups. The aim is to ensure that participants can still access creative activity in one form or another, even if they can’t leave their homes. The funding will also support us to be able to plan a new strategy for moving forward after the pandemic. By evaluating the success of these new online platforms during the crisis, we can decide whether online sessions could be part of a long-term creative approach in the future, after the pandemic is over.
DanceSyndrome MD Dawn Vickers said, “This funding is vital to DanceSyndrome’s participants. It allows them to start adjusting to getting back into the community at their own pace, whilst offering a safety net of online sessions to those who need to continue to stay at home for any of a number of reasons. It also allows us to keep engaging with new participants who have not been involved with us before. DanceSyndrome’s inclusive approach is quite unique and online dance has allowed people across the UK to be included in our work, regardless of geographical barriers. Many of those people have never had access to truly inclusive dance sessions before and they are thrilled that we are able to continue this vital work thanks to this funding!”
If you would like to find out more about our online sessions, please visit the Events page of our website.
Online Dance Update
We have been in lockdown now for nearly 4 months and we have seen lots of changes in the outside world and in our online dance world!
We still can’t offer a start date for community sessions until the Government updates the lockdown rules surrounding dancing in public places but, in the meantime, demand for Zoom sessions continues to increase. We are so glad that people are enjoying this new way of dancing! Because there is demand we want to try and offer as many different opportunities for our participants as we can and we have some new sessions that are now enrolling.
We just wanted to update you on all the different options that are now available:
Every weekday at 9am:
Wake N Dance with DanceSyndrome’s Daves: A wake up dance session every weekday at 9:30am. Our cheery Dave’s can always bring a smile to your face and what better way to start the day than with a dance and a smile? This 30 minute session will get you ready for the day ahead. Thanks to funding, these sessions are FREE! You can sign up here: https://bit.ly/WakeNDance
Monday
Contemporary Dance 11am: A new style class looking at Contemporary Dance technique. This is a block of 6 sessions and in each session you will practice a contemporary dance routine which will be performed via video in the last session. Starts Monday 3rd August. 6 sessions costs £15 (£2.50 per session). You can sign up here: https://bit.ly/ContemporaryZoom
Street Dance at 1pm: The first block of 6 sessions has been a real success and at the request of the participants we are putting on a second block. This starts on 3rd August for 6 more weeks. You don’t need to have done the first block to join in, it’s suitable for all levels and no experience is necessary. Starts Monday 3rd August. 6 sessions costs £15 (£2.50 per session). You can sign up here: https://bit.ly/ZoomStreetDance
Wednesday
Infant Dance with Max – 10am: Max is our youngest Dance Leader at just 3 years old! Join him and his mum Cristina for this fun movement to music session. Max decides the moves and your children can join in and copy him or do their own thing. Children of all ages are welcome, but the session is aimed at pre-school aged children. The session is free thanks to funding. Sign up here: https://bit.ly/DSinfants
Everybody Dance 3pm: Our inclusive community dance workshops have been adapted for Zoom. Each session is brought to you by a different pair of leaders, one with a learning disability and one without a disability. Working together they deliver a fun, accessible and inclusive dance and fitness session for anyone who wants to get moving and have a good time. The sessions include both upbeat and gentle dance, together with movement to music, that can be adapted to meet your own needs. £2.50 per week. Find details of the next session here: https://dancesyndrome.co.uk/events/
Thursday
Free YouTube/Facebook session 10am: As lockdown eases we’re seeing changing demand for our online dance services, so we will be making some changes to our YouTube/Facebook sessions. A new YouTube session will now be released every Thursday and you can still access previous sessions too on this link:
https://www.youtube.com/user/sueblackwellDS/videos
We are very grateful to Arts Council England, Community Foundation for Lancashire and Care Housing Association for the funding they have given us during lockdown to help our charity to continue to adapt and survive these challenging times! If you would also like to support us, you can donate directly through the form below, or visit our Fundraising page for other ways to support us. Thank you so much for your continued support!
DanceSyndrome COVID-19 July Update
It’s been over 3 months now since COVID-19 forced us to close our face to face inclusive dance sessions in the community. Of course, Team DS rose to the challenge and have enjoyed being able to bring you a selection of online sessions using Zoom. We’d never even heard of it before COVID-19 came along! You’ve all responded so well to using the new technology, we can’t thank you enough. It’s been very rewarding to see everyone adapting so quickly to this new way of dancing and learning together.
We’ve had some wonderful opportunities to work in partnership with other organisations and you’ve created beautiful inspiring dance performances from your homes:
#MakeitBlue Campaign to celebrate keyworkers:
Jen Blackwell’s duet with Star Supporter Andrew Self:
Ocean Waves produced & choreographed by DS Dance Leader David Corr:
What else we have been doing in lockdown:
We had a glimmer of hope that we might have been able to start operating face to face sessions with small numbers again soon. Unfortunately, it isn’t our turn quite yet, so we will be dependent on online dancing for a little longer. With this in mind, we would like to just give you a round-up of what our current sessions are.
Monday 1pm – Zoom Street Dance – 6 week block of sessions with a video performance at the end!
Wednesday 10am – Zoom Infant Dance with Max (age 3)
Wednesday 3pm – Zoom adult Everybody Dance
We also have some sessions on YouTube that are free to use.
Meanwhile, we are keeping in contact with our community venues to learn when they will re-open and we’re following the Government guidance for when we can start to come back to dancing face to face again in a safe way. Our face to face sessions will be different, with smaller numbers and social distancing and we will be in touch to ask you for your input on how you think this will work for you and any ideas you have to help us. Your views are especially important to us and we value every person’s opinion. If you want to share your ideas with us please click here to send us an email.
Fingers crossed that it won’t be too long before we can be with each other again.
Until then, please stay safe and well!
The COVID-19 crisis has presented small charities and arts organisations like DanceSyndrome with many different challenges. If you are able to support our work, donations of all sizes are very much appreciated and make a big difference to us at this difficult time. Thanks for your support!
Local charity DanceSyndrome is thrilled to have received a grant of £32,570 from Arts Council England to support the online work of Dance Leaders with learning disabilities during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Arts Council England provided the grant from their Emergency Response Fund which is designed to offer support to organisations and individuals in need of immediate support due to the Covid-19 crisis.
DanceSyndrome is a multi-award winning dance charity that delivers inclusive dance workshops and dance leadership training, as well as inspiring performances that demonstrate a focus on ability rather than disability. The charity was founded by Jen Blackwell, who happens to have Down’s syndrome, because she found it difficult to find opportunities in community dance due to her disability. DanceSyndrome’s ethos is that disability should never be a barrier to following your dreams. Dancers with and without disabilities work together to inspire people to see what can be achieved when we all become more inclusive.
DanceSyndrome supports many vulnerable adults across Lancashire who are currently shielding due to the COVID-19 outbreak. At present, it is unclear when people will be able to return to their regular community dance sessions so the charity had to adapt quickly and with a view to online sessions becoming the norm for most of 2020. The DanceSyndrome team wanted to limit the impact of isolation on participants and continue to make them feel a part of what they refer to as “the dancing family”. They decided to take the workshops online using Facebook, YouTube and Zoom to bring the sessions to regular participants and anyone else who wanted to use them to stay active at home during isolation. The Facebook and YouTube sessions are free to access and the Zoom sessions have a low charge of £2.50.
The funding provided by Arts Council England is allowing DanceSyndrome to respond to the current situation by producing online dance workshops to ensure that participants can still access creative activity from their homes. The funding will also support the charity to be able to plan a new strategy for moving forward after the pandemic. By evaluating the success of these new online platforms during the crisis, the charity can decide whether online sessions could be part of a long-term creative approach in the future, after the pandemic is over. The aim of the charity is to continue to explore how to address the imbalance of opportunity for disabled artists in the North West, and beyond, during the crisis and into the future.
DanceSyndrome MD Dawn Vickers said, “At DanceSyndrome we empower adults with learning disabilities to gain skills not just for dancing and dance leadership but for living independent lives. It has been so hard for our participants and our team members to not have that face to face contact that is such a positive part of their lives. The online sessions we are offering bridge that gap as best we can and provide a lifeline at a time of significant isolation. We are proud that this grant will benefit many learning-disabled adults whilst giving peace of mind to their families and loved ones at a very challenging time. So many people have turned to the Arts for mental wellbeing during the pandemic and we want to ensure that continues into the future. ”
If you would also like to support our work, you can donate directly through the form below. Thank you for your support!
This week is Learning Disability Awareness Week and the theme for 2020 is the importance of friendships during lockdown. At DanceSyndrome we are always proud of the fact that we offer a great support network to our participants and do all we can to prevent social isolation – so much so that our dancers refer to us as their “Dancing Family”. The ongoing Coronavirus situation have been tough for us all as we are usually in each other’s company so often and we love to be together but over the last 3 months we have been pulling together to support each other more than ever.
Once the decision was taken to close our weekly sessions in March, our team immediately started working on ways to maintain the vital connections that we have with our dancers. Our Dance Leaders (many of whom are people with learning disabilities) drive everything that we do and they told us they wanted to keep dancing and, as always, we were led by them.
We now have four free YouTube sessions per week:
An adult Zoom session on Wednesdays at 3pm (click here to sign up for the latest sessions!)
And an infant session led by Max, our youngest Dance Leader at just 3 years old!
Max who has Down's Syndrome is set to become @DanceSyndrome youngest #Dance Leader aged only 3
Sessions are on a Wednesday morning at 10am
Register for Free #tiddler sessions here:https://t.co/4JnGPfbVN0#SEND #Dance #Therapy #DownsSyndrome #Cumbria #Dancer #Babies #Toddler https://t.co/UHpqBFxmDC
— Diff-Ability (@DiffAbilityCIC) June 12, 2020
DanceSyndrome has always strived to provide opportunities for people to participate in dance activities despite barriers and this lockdown provided a challenge! Our team are doing their best to help people to #CarryOnDancing and we are proud of the way we have responded to the crisis.
DanceSyndrome is about so much more though. Of course dancing is our focus, but there are so many other benefits too. Our team of dancers call themselves the “Dancing Family” because they support and love each other just like any other family. We support people with and without learning disabilities to make life-changing friendships, have relationships and live a life of their own choosing. Many of us take those things for granted, but many people with a learning disability are isolated and lonely, so we think these things are just as important as dance!
#LDWeek this year is about the importance of friendships during lockdown. We've always used #dance to help people with #LearningDisabilities to overcome #loneliness & #socialisolation. This is even more vital during #lockdown so we're offering online dancehttps://t.co/YxxnQ14nuf pic.twitter.com/IywTVzYzvi
— DanceSyndrome (@DanceSyndrome) June 15, 2020
Of course, it’s harder to support your friends and family during lockdown, but again, we are proud of how our team are reacting to the situation. They are staying in regular contact with each other and inspiring each other with photos and videos of what they have been doing, in much the same way they would face-to-face before the pandemic! Here are just a few of their fab pics and videos:
As well as inspiring and celebrating each other, they have still been working on dance projects from home to inspire and celebrate others. Everyone on the team was thrilled to be invited to celebrate our keyworkers with this great video for the #MakeitBlue campaign
We are doing our best to provide a variety of dance activities and projects to give our dancers plenty of choice about how they spend their time in lockdown in the hope that this will make this difficult time easier for them. Feedback from parents and carers tells us that they have also really benefited from their own ‘behind the scenes’ involvement. Being involved in our activities is giving individuals and their families a focus, structure to each week, taking the pressure off finding new things to do and most of all improving the ongoing, general, health and wellbeing of participants thank to having enjoyable activities to do and, most of all, staying connected with their friends.
Becky Rich’s dad Simon said “It has definitely helped me personally. I have been kept pretty busy organising and it has definitely made this difficult time for Becky so much easier and more bearable for her, keeping her happy and well balanced which necessarily, in turn, has helped give me peace of mind. Definitely a very big well done and thank you to all those organising.”
And of course, Simon has also been encouraged to join Becky in a bit of dancing! Why don’t you give it a go and see how much dancing improves your own physical and mental wellbeing too!
During Learning Disability Awareness Week, we hope our dancers have inspired you to see the positive side of life in lockdown! If you want to support us to continue to provide these life changing opportunities, there are lots of ways you can do that.
Join us on social media and share our posts to help people to find out about our work
Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Linked In | YouTube
You can volunteer your time if you have skills that can help us or make a donation to support us or you can donate or fundraise using the following methods:
By Post – You can send a cheque made payable to DanceSyndrome to:
DanceSyndrome, C/O Pathways Associates,
Suite 2, Waterside, St James Court West, Accrington, Lancashire, BB5 1NA
Just Giving – you can make a donation or fundraise for DanceSyndrome at: www.justgiving.com/dance-syndrome
Facebook – you can make a donation or set up a fundraiser via Facebook – www.facebook.com/dancerleddisabilityinspired
Text message donation – to donate text DANCE to one of the following numbers:
£1 – text DANCE to 70201
£3 – text DANCE to 70331
£5 – text DANCE to 70970
£10 – text DANCE to 70191
£20 – text DANCE20 to 70191
Paypal – you can make a donation via Paypal.
Online – donate directly using the form below.
Thank you for supporting DanceSyndrome this Learning Disability Awareness Week!
DanceSyndrome is thrilled to have received a grant of £5,000 to support online dance sessions provided by our Dance Leaders with learning disabilities during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Community Fund for Lancashire, who provided the grant from their Lancashire COVID-19 Community Support Fund, are an independent charity that promotes local giving to address local disadvantage. Since 2007, they have distributed in excess of £13 million to charities and community groups in Lancashire.
DanceSyndrome is a multi-award winning dance charity that delivers inclusive dance workshops and dance leadership training, as well as inspiring performances that demonstrate a focus on ability rather than disability. The charity was founded by Jen Blackwell, who happens to have Down’s syndrome, because she found it difficult to find opportunities in community dance due to her disability. Our ethos is that disability should never be a barrier to following your dreams. Dancers with and without disabilities work together to inspire people to see what can be achieved when we all become more inclusive.
We support many vulnerable adults across Lancashire who are currently shielding due to the COVID-19 outbreak. At present, it is unclear when people will be able to return to their regular community dance sessions so we had to adapt quickly and with a view to online sessions becoming the norm for most of 2020. Our team wanted to limit the impact of isolation on participants and continue to make them feel a part of what they refer to as “the dancing family”. We decided to take the workshops online using Facebook, YouTube and Zoom to bring the sessions to regular participants and anyone else who wanted to use them to stay active at home during isolation. The Facebook and YouTube sessions are free to access and the Zoom sessions have a low charge of £2.50. The funding provided by Community Fund for Lancashire is subsidising the running costs of the sessions for 12 weeks and enabling us to focus on the future.
Rae Brooke, Chief Executive for the Community Foundation for Lancashire, said: “The Lancashire COVID-19 Community Support Fund has distributed more than £650,000 through 165 grants to frontline community groups and charitable organisations supporting the most vulnerable.
“DanceSyndrome, who are providing a vital lifeline for local people with learning disabilities during the lockdown, are amongst the many incredible organisations that have been supported. We know that the detrimental impact of this emergency will be evident over the long term and to enable us to continue supporting the work of groups like DanceSyndrome we are calling on those able to do so to donate to the Lancashire COVID-19 Community Support Fund.”
DanceSyndrome MD Dawn Vickers said, “At DanceSyndrome we empower adults with learning disabilities to gain skills not just for dancing and dance leadership but for living independent lives. It has been so hard for our participants and our team members to not have that face to face contact that is such a positive part of their lives. The online sessions we are offering bridge that gap as best we can and provide a lifeline at a time of significant isolation. We are proud that this grant will benefit many learning-disabled adults whilst giving peace of mind to their families and loved ones at a very challenging time.”
If you would like to try out the free online dance sessions yourself, see our YouTube playlist. Details about the next Zoom sessions can be found on the Events page of our website.
If you feel passionately about the work that we do and would like to support us to continue to grow, please consider making a donation using the form below:
