Two scholarships at dance schools are up for grabs in a challenge launched by the Fidem Charity Foundation to help fill “the vacuum felt by thousands of teenagers” due to COVID-19.
The one-year scholarships are a follow-up to a dance and music production, Flimkien (Together We Can), the foundation recently launched in keeping with its ethos to educate, empower and achieve as well as champion the world of the arts.
Youths are being encouraged to create their own take on the video project and submit the footage to We Connect, another project of the charity NGO, to have a chance of winning the scholarships at Seed Dance Studios and The College of Dance.
The best two will be selected by three judges.
“The idea of the competition stemmed from wanting to help the emotional well-being of youngsters; to offer them something positive to look forward to,” Fidem founder, Sabine Agius Cabourdin, said.
“It has been said a million times over: COVID-19 has affected mental health, especially that of teens, and is taking its toll on them. It is a sad, harsh reality that they cannot go out and socialise. They are missing the best of years of their life and these days are never going to come back,” she insisted.
Fidem provides support and empowerment opportunities to vulnerable people, particularly women, adolescent girls and children, through life-changing access to education and well-being guidance.
It strongly believes that dance, music and acting should all form part of any school curriculum and, since the arts education schools are still closed due to health restrictions, the situation has been even more pronounced.
“I have spoken to the principals of dance schools and am aware they are concerned about how anxious, stressed out and depressed their students are,” the lawyer and philanthropist told Times of Malta.
“Their mental health has been affected by the closures and their inability to pursue their dance education.”
The original music video, which youths are being encouraged to recreate, is aimed at fostering a sense of togetherness in the community and hope for a brighter future at a time where everything is bleak, Agius Cabourdin explained.
The production features frontliners and community members celebrating their contributions to society during the pandemic and includes the voluntary time and energy of nurses, policemen and bus drivers jiving to choreography by Justin Roy Barker and a tune by authors Fr Rob Galea, Ivan Diaz, Ricardo Grzona and Shafik Palis.
The music video attracted 26,000 views on YouTube within 48 hours and Agius Cabourdin hoped the “joyful” track, sung by Edward Ellul and Rachel Fabri, would now get some airtime and become a “national anthem of hope”.
The We Connect well-being project, www.weconnect.org.mt, set up last May in response to the pandemic, also includes a recently launched “feel-good” Facebook group, whose 5,000 plus members show the need for a safe online space, with a team of experts, including psychologists, chefs, nutritionists and fitness instructors, at hand to offer an array of services.
Those who have joined the “little family” can chat openly with like-minded people and have access to a wealth of information, including exercise classes that go hand in hand with mental health, Agius Cabourdin said about the initiative that provides ongoing support and guidance through online activities.
“Our goal is to empower community members with free, unlimited access to a wide range of tools and opportunities designed to help enrich their day and combat loneliness,” she said.
Video submissions can be sent to info@weconnect.org.mt.