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13 Jan 2025

Reyna Mehta Organises Bharat Natyam Recital in Dubai; Raises Dh 63,000 for Breast Cancer Awareness

Reyna Mehta, a 16 year old Grade 11 student doing her A-levels at Jumeriah College, Dubai recently organized a Bharat Natyam performance as part of a fundraising-cum-awareness campaign that raised Dh63,000 for breast cancer awareness. She performed along with other cancer survivors. The money was donated to Al Jalila Foundation, a non-profit healthcare organization.

Reyna, the daughter of Reshma and Anshul D. Mehta was motivated by the personal experience of her grandmother who was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 90. “Initially she was weak but after around a month, she was back to her normal life,” Reyna told thenationalnews.com, a media channel in Dubai.

The show, held at Majlis Al Amal, the Al Jalila Foundation's cancer drop-in centre dedicated to supporting female patients, was part of a campaign she launched through a licensed online donation and crowdfunding platform, YallaGive. Her campaign was the winning fundraiser of the month for October 2024.

Reyna has been learning Bharat Natyam since the age of seven and her dance teacher helped her choregraph the show in which had four other cancer survivors participated.

“Some of them had not danced since high school,” Reyna said, but they really pushed themselves, coming to practice even when chemotherapy left them feeling unwell. Praising their effort and resilience she noted that “it just showed me that if you put your mind to something, nothing can stop you, no matter what happens and no matter what obstacles you face."

Reyna has been championing various social causes since a very young age and has volunteered with organisations like Harmony House and Happy Feet 2.0. She has conducted over 20 workshop sessions (in Delhi, Pune, Mumbai and has Aligarh in the pipeline) and worked with over 80 girls to educate them on menstrual health and adolescence.

She has created a 10-session syllabus which covers normalizing the changes that a girl goes through on touching menarche. It covers a variety of issues ranging from skin acne to the menstrual cycle and bodily changes girls experience, and is now in line for official accreditation.

She has also worked with her family collecting and distributing blankets to blue collar workers during the pandemic in 2021. The shoes she collects are donated for social welfare in Africa and also for being recycled, refurbished and distributed among the needy sections of society in India.

Since her childhood she has also been involved in raising funds for animal rescue, and surgery. During the pandemic, she set up an entrepreneurial venture to raise funds for this purpose.