Background
One of the most unique teams in the world, DanceSport Team Cebu has more than 120 members who dedicate precious hours teaching for free in an outreach program that benefits thousands of children. What makes the team unique compared to all the dance clubs in the world is this sense of selflessness. You should hear the stories of our members of how they spent Sunday afternoons traveling three hours in steep dirt roads just to get to their students in mountain villages.
DanceSport Team Cebu was just a ragtag group of three dancing couples eight years ago. Filled with the love of ballroom dancing and the passion to compete, the team endured despite a scarcity of resources, their only means of learning through video clips and TV shows. Despite this, the team was able to accomplish a gold medal or two in the national competitions.
The casual group of six grew to more than 60 couples who regularly trains thousands of students in free workshop outreach programs. To date, the team had given free workshops to more than 10,000 grassroots village children in the past 10 years. Last summer’s workshop alone had 3,000 juveniles signed-up which turned into a year-round free workshop back-to-back with year-round barangay competition. These beneficiaries developed skills and self-respect and with the help DanceSport, as an alternative activity to lead them away from drugs and petty crimes.
Program beneficiaries are mostly kids and youth aged five to twenty-five years old, people who can make a difference in our country’s future. Seeing them is inspiring – five to fifteen year-old kids from underprivileged families, dancing with the skill and passion of a true athlete clad in self-made costumes and borrowed shoes two sizes bigger.
This sense of volunteerism and dedication is catching and adds fuel to the team members’ passion for DanceSport who excel in national and international competitions.
DanceSport Team Cebu grabbed history’s first Gold and Silver medals in the first DanceSport inclusion in the SouthEast Asian Games and the Philippines’ first medal in any sport in the International Children’s Games. Counting the last eight years of competing in the national and international competitions, the team has proudly garnered at least 308 golds, 222 silvers and 187 bronze medals.
