Following the spate of health issues leading to death of the nation’s dancers, Kafayat Shafau-Ameh, popularly known as Kaffy, has said she was collaborating with stakeholders to provide health insurance to Nigerian dancers via her Foundation; Kreative Arts Foundation for Youths (KAFFY).
This was disclosed at a two-day virtual conference tagged ‘Dance2Health’, where Kaffy and other stakeholders including healthcare providers, health management organisations, life coaches, assembled to proffer a sustainable health insurance package for dancers.
Kaffy while speaking at the conference said: “More than 98 per cent of dancers lack health insurance and self-awareness. The majority lead a lifestyle of drugs, peer pressure, poor mental wellbeing, and personal irresponsibility.
“This is the bane of the industry. Until every corporate dance leader is shouldered with the responsibility of ensuring that every staff (dancer) has a valid health insurance cover this industry lacks a heart,”
She also revealed that aside from the health insurance initiative, her foundation will launch a mental health support group where dancers can meet twice a month.
Before the summit, Kaffy noted she had done a survey of how many Nigerian dancers would be interested in health insurances and impressively, 250 responses were recorded within 42 hours.
Therefore, plans for the first phase of the initiative with an initial 500 dancers who would benefit comprehensible health insurance plan at an affordable rate is being concluded. “We agreed to start small in Lagos by running with a proper organisational structure, proper registration of dancers within local government areas, evaluating the cost of healthcare per unit, and finally putting up a system that stirs sustainable support and sponsorship is the way to go. This conference is an ongoing conversation that was proposed to run twice per month,” she said.