This is my first article dedicated to championing the youth of Ealing. By praising academic, sporting and social excellence I hope to work towards creating a better stereotype of young people and change the way they are perceived by different members of the community.

While I was scouring all of my sources for some news I came across 1846 Southall Air Cadet Bhangra Dancers. 1846 Southall Air Cadet Squadron is part of a national youth organisation sponsored by the Royal Air Force that aims to promote interest in aviation and encourage the spirit of adventure and develop qualities of leadership and team work.

Recently, the cadets were asked to take part in helping raise money for charity. Rather than doing the usual RAF related activities they decided to do a Bhangra dance.

Irfan Rizvi, one of the civilian instructors explained that: “This had never been done before so we were really anxious on how it would be received but we decided to give the kids a chance.”

Well staff soon found out whether the kids had got it right, in a form of a roaring cheer. And from then on they have gone from strength to strength. They have just finished a tour with the military wives choir where they helped raise vast sums of money for charity.

The performance was such a hit that, the top music promoter John Hessenthaler started putting together a show around the Military Wives Choir based at Wattisham Flying Station, where the Cadets were on top of his list of acts, the cadets were head over heels with this news. To sharpen their routine the cadets benefited from professional choreography instruction from Bollywood Dance London.

They performed in front of thousands of people and managed to raise £12K for military charities which was “truly satisfying, and was all worth it in the end” said one of the dancers. Since then, they have performed at a whole host of high ranking venues around the UK.

The Cadets even got to perform at the HMS President, where Air Marshal Sir Andrew enjoyed the performance so much, that he spent time afterwards taking some music instruction from the young drummer’s , he even tried out as one of the Dholes ( double headed drum widely used in the Indian subcontinent) players.

Southall’s cadets Flying Officer Amen Manget said: “The whole experience was flabbergasting and I am so proud of our dancers for raising vital funds for a raft of Service charities”.

The lead dancer, Priyanka Narain said: “I have enjoyed these events so much that I want to go back and do it all over again, I am so happy that our continuous commitment to the dance routines paid off in the end, I will never forget this.”