Tiny Toones - breakdancing as gateway to education
This project's parent organization is Tiny Toones
It operates in Cambodia
It uses Dance
Entered the Sport for Quality Education and Employment Award
More about Tiny Toones - breakdancing as gateway to education
Tiny Toones uses the sport of breakdancing as a tool to engage with Cambodia’s most at-risk and hard-to-reach young people, and uses it to take them off Phnom Penh’s streets and into a safe educational environment where they can learn, build self‐confidence, secure brighter employment prospects, and feel supported pursuing their dreams.
Currently, Cambodia is failing the fourth global sustainable development goal of providing “inclusive and equitable quality education and… lifelong learning opportunities for all.” Approximately 40% of children aged 5-14 are involved in child labour and nationally children average just 4.4 years in school. This leaves many Cambodian children undereducated, underqualified and disadvantaged as they move into adulthood and seek employment to break out of poverty.
Since 2005 we have uniquely used the popularity of breakdancing amongst impoverished young Cambodians as a tool to engage, inspire and then educate thousands. Many of our students aren’t in school when they come to us and/or are involved with gangs, drugs or crime. Break-dancing provides them with focus, motivation and confidence, but it’s the education we then provide that transforms lives.