A FUNDRAISER at St John's Anglican Church Hall in Port Fairy will showcase African music on Saturday to raise money for a project in Tanzania.
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The Bandari Project's Seif Sakate is hosting a dance floor revival from 8pm.
Mr Sakate and Catherine Ryan set up the project in 2014 to build a kindergarten in his hometown of Mto wa Mbu, Tanzania - a small town on the main tourist road near Serengeti National Park and other game reserves.
A prize will be awarded for the "loudest outfit". "With African dress you just wear colourful clothes," Mr Sakate said.
"We haven't been able to party for a long time so we thought we'd do dance for a good cause and raise some money."
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When the Port Fairy community jumped onto the project it turned into building an entire primary school instead.
The school has more than 100 students, seven teachers and eight other staff, a sewing project and animals - with hopes to reach a capacity of 160 students.
Bandari is Swahili for port and was chosen to reflect its connection to Port Fairy where the project was initiated.
"The project is based in a small town which is heavily reliant on tourism, so that stopped in a heartbeat (due to COVID-19)," Mr Sakate said.
"It was hard because they didn't have an income so it impacted the circle of life.
"Farmers couldn't get money from tourism and those who send children to school couldn't grow anything."
He said the town was further devastated in early 2021 when it was hit with floods.
"A lot of farmlands were under water for more than 12 months - some of the farmers went into fishing," Mr Sakate said.
"The silver lining was that the water filled Lake Manyara (which hadn't had water since 1998) so there was lots of fish which created an income."
Mr Sakate said a group was set to visit the project site next Easter.
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