Our funding request will allow us to fulfill the community building capacity of our mandate.
Donations will aid the mentorship we have developed with Pulse Studio’s Gateway Project. Senior dancers in our festival program receive mentorship training and dance instruction for free at Pulse Studios. In turn, they run free after school programs in elementary and jr. high schools in East Calgary, where access to dance training is low to non-existent, where new immigrants and low-income families reside. Young mentors gain professional skills and gain valuable work experience in this program, often gain employment at Pulse after the two-year program is completed and contribute to their communities in a meaningful way. The after-school program attendees gain physical, interpretive, and interpersonal skills and perform at our annual festival.
Our funding request covers the lead mentor’s instruction time and the administrative fees at Pulse Studios. We successfully carried out our program at two sites last year. We would love to rise to the challenge to provide our programming in all areas where there is interest and need.