A young Christchurch ballet dancer has overcome extreme adversity to follow her dreams, along with the help of the Inspire Foundation.
The Inspire Foundation was set up after the Canterbury Earthquakes and has donated over $1.5 million to 350 young Canterbury people between the ages of 15 and 25.
19-year-old Breya Takitimu, who has been dancing since she was just three years old, will use the grant towards a year studying dance at the Chicago Joffrey Ballet Academy.
“Just to be performing on stage as much as I can and getting to do that every day is just insane to me,” she said.
But it hasn’t come easy; when she was 14, she was so unwell the dream began to fade.
“I got told that I would never be able to eat, drink or dance ever again and that was really hard to hear, especially the dancing part,” she said.
She was diagnosed with POTS, Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, and was left with a feeding tube after months in the hospital.
“I couldn't bear the thought of not dancing, so I was like, no way like it’s my body. Surely I can somehow, you know, have a say even though I had doctors saying no, you're not going to dance again.”
And she’s proven them all wrong, pirouetting in the face of adversity.
Inspire Foundation’s Matty Lovell says, “clearly she's talented, right, but she's also been through significant adversity, you know, and she's come through that.
"And she's shown courage, grit, determination, and she also hasn't let others define what she's capable of, and so that’s special. You can't teach that when you combine talent with an attitude like that.
"That’s when it gets exciting.”
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