From Life In An Orphanage To Star Turns All Over The Country

“It’s a very different life than she could have imagined when she was 4½-year-old Mabinty Bangura, living in an orphanage in violent, impoverished Sierra Leone. Young Mabinty had only one friend and was anything but a favorite with the ‘aunties’ who ran the orphanage, perhaps because she had vitiligo, a pigmentation condition that left white patches on her upper chest. One day, she found a magazine that had blown against the orphanage gate. In it was a picture of a ballerina in pointe shoes. She tore it out and kept it, and dreamed of dancing like that one day.”