Namitala Esther is one of our Rhythm N Dance students in Uganda.  Our director Kevin McEwen met her while he was a sgrad student at New York University’s Steindhardt School of Education. Esther would collaborate with Kevin in 2018 when he brought several of his students from the Gloria Eve School for the Performing Arts to Uganda on a dance intensive study abroad program.

Esther will be entering into a nursing program in July 2022. We are asking our community to come out and support this amazing young woman’s educational efforts by sponsoring her educational goals.  Here’s a direct quote from her below:

I am Namitala Esther a 21yr old Ugandan. I live in a small village known as Nsambya,  in Kampala the capital of Uganda.

I have been dancing since the age of 6yrs. I love dancing because it’s an amazing way to communicate who we really are as creative people. Dance is also an effective tool used for healing our audiences.

As the entire world has had to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, I have chosen to go to school to study nursing. Nursing is a life fulfilling career which is very compatible with dance as my goal is to use both career paths to create a merged variation of healing for my Ugandan people.  Dance will help me deal with the mental/emotional aspects of healing while nursing will help with the physical aspects of healing. With the healthcare system not being what it should be in Uganda,I truly beleive that my approach to healing will be something that will allow me to create an approach to healing that is grounded in traditional cultural dance ethnography that I will combine with nursing information necessary to support day-to-day challenges of my people.

In Uganda, there are many deaths related to insufficient health workers in our hospitals.  The coursework needed to become a nurse can be extremely expensive, making it a financial challenge for those aspiring to enter into the medical field. I would really love to contribute to making the health care services better in my country by becoming a  health care worker in Uganda.

Thank you for any help and support you can give!