:: Bali for Kids.com Magazine - Luna's Dream - Most wanted: Dance like a Ballerina::

Children have dreams. Sometimes those dream are not so far away from reality, that their dreams cannot become true. Luna's Dream is to learn dancing...

Luna is a 7 year old Indonesian girl living here in Bali. We meet Luna a few months ago during her violin lessons with Barok - an dedicated Indonesian musican, who is teaching Luna to play the violin. One day we saw Luna dancing... She was as wonderful in her dancing, as she was well playing her violin. For our Bali for Kids.com Sponsor Me! article we managed to get Luna invited to the Bali Bird Park in Singapadu and she spent a wonderful day their with one of her best friend. The girls enjoyed the birds and shows, experienced a day together Luna would not be able to experience normally. We thank a lot to the Bali Bird Park to invite Luna over for a day and give her the chance to see and touch the birds. She was very impressed from the 4D Avian Movie, something she never has seen before in her life.

Luna's family is a normal Indonesian family. Two children, who go to a local school, the family lives in a small room called KOS. The family's income is quite low compairing to Western standards, but I meet them as very happy people who love their kids a lot, but expensive dance or art classes would be far away from the budget the family has to live each month.

Our question at Bali for Kids.com was: Why shall she not have dance classes? We find Luna someone who sponsor her Ballet classes.

Bali SoDA takes 400.000Rp for one month classes - classes are twice a week. Additional Luna will need a uniform from RAD which is around 150.000Rp for the whole year. Additional we thought it would be better if we also give the family some money for transport, so our help would in no way interfear with the families budget.

So the total required for 1 year dancing for Luna is 5.500.000Rp. We would be happy for a single person or business sponsoring Luna, or even small amounts from several people.

We believe very much Luna has the chance to learn performing arts in the future, as she devenetly got talent. She has one, even more important fact: She loves to do it. She is there with her heart when she plays the violin and she dances with her heart. Having ballet as a basic dance education, Luna would have the chance later to work in performing arts, rather than in an office or any other job, she would be able to upgrade the families income a lot. We believe that those children who show talents shall be supported in early years, that those talents are not lost forever. What a change of life it could be for Luna and Luna's family if Luna would be a performer in the future. Please contact us on info@baliforkids.com or balisoda@gmail.com if you like to help Luna fullfilling her dream....

We at Bali for Kids.com had a dream a few months ago - to find Luna someone to sponsor her to dance ballet. As I said before, sometimes dreams are not so far away from us, that we cannot reach them: We found Luna a wonderful sponsor from Australia: Kerry Smith - A dance teacher herself. We were lucky that Kerry planed a holiday in Bali and decided to sponsor Luna. So on the 23rd of September we all got together at Bali SoDA to get Luna's Dream going: Kerry Smith and her friend Fiona, Luna and her family, Maria Gilbert and her team from Bali SoDA and Bali for Kids.com.

Kerry Smith: I live in Geraldton Western Australia, I have had my own Dancing School for 21 years, teaching Acrobatics, Tap, Jazz and Slow Modern to Students from 3 years upwards. It has been a wonderful life teaching children the joy of dance, and watching them perform in Concerts, Competitions, & 3 Students have become Professional Dancers performing world wide in Musicals, Stage Shows and on Cruise Ships. My friend Fiona, who you met, told me about Bali for Kids.com, which we found very useful. We have been holidaying in Bali for many years and love it so much. When I read about Luna in your magazine, I was so excited and very keen to help her follow her dream and learn dancing. I told my Parents, who also wanted to help, so we decided to contact you and see if it could be arranged. To see Luna's face when she was getting her dancing leotard, skirt, shoes, etc was so special, and how happy and proud

her Parents are for Luna to have this opportunity. It was such a lovely day meeting Luna and her family. I'm so looking forward to returning to Bali, & seeing you all again, but especially Luna.

Luna has started her classes on the 5th of October and is totally delighted to join the class. It was super fun to watch her dancing along with all the other girls in her class. She has very fast adapted to the new enviorment and the whole Bali for Kids.com team is very, very happy that Luna is now a Bali SoDA student.

Kerry - It was great to meet you! And thanks so much from all of us for helping Luna to get her dream come true!!!!!

Stay tuned to read each month how Luna is doing at Bali SoDA's ballet classes! - So cool! Yeah, yeah, yeah!!! (personal comment from the editor!)

Time is flying... Luna has well fit into her dance class and has lerned a lot during the last weeks. She has almost learned all movements and only need to get more confident in her movements. Nancy the teacher told me that Luna has for sure talent and has improved a lot during the last month. The girls also had a little 5 minute performance, which all of them managed well. So we all look forward what is down the road for Luna in the next month...

Unfortunatly the teacher Nancy had some private obligations and had to leave Bali since end of November. We hope she will be back beginning of Febuary and the kids and Luna will be back on the dancefloor.