Our objectives
Flamingo Chicks is an award-winning charity that provides inclusive dance classes for disabled children and those with long-term health conditions like cancer. We champion access, break down barriers, and promote wellbeing through movement. We've seen 45,000 children dance with us, since we began!
From breaking down barriers in iconic spaces to magical performances, Flamingo Chicks is bursting with colour, movement, and inclusion which has seen us travel everywhere from Downing Street to the Eden Project, and from Disneyland Paris to the United Nations in New York!
Disabled children face significant barriers to physical activity, with 41% remaining inactive and obesity rates 38% higher than their peers. Many also experience loneliness, with 45% regularly feeling isolated. Dance provides an accessible and enjoyable way to reduce these inequalities, helping children get active, improve their physical health, build resilience, and connect with their peers.
Beyond movement, our sessions build confidence, foster friendships, and reduce isolation, helping children feel part of a community. By challenging perceptions and showcasing disabled children’s abilities, we are committed to ensuring greater inclusion in dance.
Volunteers are the heartbeat of Flamingo Chicks. We champion first-time, disabled, older, and socially isolated volunteers, unlocking incredible talent that strengthens our charity.78% of volunteers said working with us reshaped their view of what disabled children can achieve - proof that volunteering drives real social change!
Our activities
Flamingo Chicks exists to create a world where every child and adult with a disability enjoys their right to access services and can realise their full potential.
Our work is based around 5 key pillars:
- Inclusive dance classes & workshops: Through our three dance interventions: Flamingo Chicks (for children), Flamingo Dance (for adults) and Hatching Chicks (aimed at disabled mums and mums of disabled babies), we provide inclusive physical activity that caters for ALL. Our classes are unique: founded in core dance principles with communication aids such as Makaton signing, as well as adapted movements and multisensory elements, our classes support both the physical and emotional health of participants.
- Parent/carer peer support network: Offering a lifeline for parents and carers, we provide opportunities to connect and tools to help equip families through things like social events and Makaton training. 87% of parents felt less socially isolated after joining the Flamingo Chicks community, and 76% were more able to cope with the demands of caring for a disabled child.
- Exceptional intergenerational volunteering: We exemplify the highest standards in volunteering, as evidenced by our Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service – the MBE for charities! Volunteers are the heartbeat of Flamingo Chicks. We pioneer opportunities that welcome and encourage first time, disabled and socially isolated older volunteers. We know there is such huge talent and potential in these groups which make our charity stronger. We offer training and opportunities including Makaton and public speaking.
- Global Outreach: Global Chicks is an outreach project sharing tips, best practice and upskilling organisations that work with disabled children across the world. There are between 93 and 150 million disabled children worldwide (Their World, 2021). Many of these children live on the margins of society, excluded from school and living in poverty. They are also often overlooked by policies, plans and targeted support programmes. From Ghana to Vietnam and Singapore to refugee camps in Greece, our outreach teams have delivered Flamingo Chicks’ workshops to hundreds of children worldwide and supported local organisations to develop their own activities and grow!
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Advocacy: Leading our movement to champion inclusion and disabled children’s rights are the very people Flamingo Chicks exists to serve – disabled young people. We call them our Agents of Change. They work towards dismantling barriers to inclusion so that schools, health facilities, public transport bodies and others encourage disabled children to participate alongside their peers. Our Agents of Change meet regularly for workshops underpinned by the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. They already have an impressive speaking record, including the UN HQ in New York and the House of Commons, and have advised power houses like the Science Museum in London.
