2023 CDF Proctor Institute Leadership

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Maria Nhambu

Aerobics With Soul® The African Dance Workout

Creator of a popular workout – Aerobics With Soul®-The African Dance Workout, Maria Nhambu is also the author of Africa?s Child, America?s Daughter and Drum Beats, Heart Beats ? a trilogy of her memoirs.
Born in Tanzania, East Africa, she was raised by German Catholic nuns at an orphanage for mixed race children. Throughout the hardship and mixed blessings of her childhood, Nhambu sustained her spirit through dance and kept alive her dream of further education. She was adopted at age 19, by an American woman (age 24) who brought her to the United States.
Her passion for African Art and Culture, inspired her to create and teach Aerobics With Soul® The African Dance Workout, and to collect the African Art, exhibited throughout Haley Farm as The Nhambu Collection. In her role as an unofficial cultural ambassador she gives African dance presentations and lectures about Africa nationally and internationally.