Bettering the Mdantsane community is Ben Rexana—a dance teacher who provides free lessons to kids and an animal lover who helps sterilise and feed community pets.
Mdantsane, South Africa (23 September 2024) — Benjamin Rexana isn’t your typical dance teacher.
For starters, his studio is a non-profit that’s accessible to the community of Mdantsane children as a means to fill their time with the joy of dance. Secondly, a big part of his work involves helping animals in need. At first glance, you might wonder what the thread is that connects dance, dogs and kids. But when you look deeper, you see what Ben sees: a community with happier children means more room to teach them about animal welfare and in turn, primes the next generation of animals to be in better hands.
Since 2008, Ben has been running CyfaDance K9-Care Community Development—a free dance lessons service for Mdantsane’s children.
The word of Ben’s efforts has spread far and wide out of Mdantsane, earning him a place as one of the 30 Young Mandelas circa 2022 in the Compassion category and inspiring people like East London’s Kirsty Monk who put his work on Good Things Guy’s radar.
“It is really is inspiring what he does with so little and much of an impact he is making on these young kids,” shares Kirsty, who adds that Ben’s work, beyond keeping kids off the streets is also making a difference for the animals in their area from feeding to getting the dogs sterilised.
“For me the kids I teach are [as] important as the dogs I care about,” says Ben. He adds that the children help him feed the dogs.
When he’s not actively feeding the community’s animals, working on a sterilisation campaign, connecting the pets to vets or empowering kids through dance, Ben works on educating the community on animal and child welfare, acting as a voice for those who cannot speak up for themselves and breaking stigmas.
In very exciting news on the dance side of his community work, CYFA Community Development has been invited to the 2024 Intercontinental Dance and Battles Championship Finals—set to take place in Sea Point from 27 to 29 September!
The Championship Finals will see over 400 top dancers from Lesotho to Seychelles compete—the opportunity for the young dancers of Mdantsane.
Ben is currently looking for donations to help his dancers get to their big moment in the spotlight, and donations to the dream can be made here.
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