On Monday 22nd November 2021, Cinderella held a special gala performance to raise funds for Malala Yousafzai’s work to empower women and girls around the world. With over 130 million girls out of school today, Malala Fund works towards a world where every girl can learn and lead by investing in solutions to empower women and ensure that girls have access to a safe and quality education for free.With just shy of £100,000 being raised from the evening and directly donated to the Malala fund, Andrew and the cast of the show are incredibly honoured to be able to help make a difference. The performance also included an extra special auction from contemporary Afghan artist Shamsia Hassani, which helped to raise even more money for the cause.
Photographer Credit: Dave Benett
Speaking on both the fund and the gala, Malala said: “Since age 10, I've been fighting for a world where every girl can learn and lead. But in the past two years, girls in many countries have faced enormous setbacks to their education – from Covid to economic pressures to conflict and displacement. I am grateful to my friend Andrew for all his support, and I want to thank the cast and crew of Cinderella for arranging this special performance to support Malala Fund.”
Andrew himself said that “I am an enormous admirer of Malala. She is an extraordinary person and you can imagine my delight when I discovered that she loved musical theatre. Malala and her fund work to empower women and girls to be the best version of themselves and the people they truly want to be. We wanted to do this gala performance of Cinderella because our heroine is a strong-willed and mischievous young woman whose lesson is: don’t change to please others. I want to thank everyone who supports this gala and enables us to do more to help women and girls to achieve their dreams.”
Take a look at how the star studded event went, and who showed up to help support the cause here:
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