Thanks for your interest, this campaign has now closed. Are you still interested in supporting our work with young people? Head over to the Support Us section now to find out how you can help.
We are raising funds for young people to attend U.Dance National Festival through our access bursary scheme. We aim to address financial barriers to support young people to take part in an established, life-changing programme motivated to promote dance as a sustainable, healthy & valued career pathway.
One Dance UK's 2021 report, Everything We Loved About Dance Was Taken, highlighted the catastrophic decline of dance education in the UK at primary, secondary, and further education (FE) levels. Due to shifting educational priorities and trends, we identified a reduction in the provision of dance curriculum hours, extracurricular provision, and the number of specialist dance teachers in mainstream settings.
One Dance UK is raising vital funds for young people to attend U.Dance National Festival 2024, which will take place this July in Liverpool. U.Dance offers young people the opportunity to engage with the benefits of dance that they may be missing out on in mainstream education.
The festival is an opportunity for young people to perform and take part in workshops and career sessions with the UK’s top industry professionals. Since 2018, 20,000 young people have taken part across the U.Dance Local, Regional, and National Festival platforms, and 86% of U.Dance National Festival 2022 participants wanted to pursue a career in dance after taking part.
We're asking for donations towards our Big Give campaign, which ends on 26 March, to help every young person access the festival. Your donation will go directly towards our U.Dance Access Bursary Scheme, helping to remove all barriers that can prevent a young person from being at and experiencing the U.Dance National Festival 2024, including costs of travel, accommodation, and food.
For one week only, The Big Give is matching funds up to £2,500—doubling your donations to reach £5,000! However, we need to raise as much as possible so that every young person has the fullest experience during the National Festival weekend, so we have raised our overall target to 10,000.
We are very grateful to our supporters Trinity Laban, who have pledged £2,500 to support our Access Bursary Scheme.
The campaign closes on Tuesday 26 March at 12 noon.