Council vacancy for belly dancer

The successful candidate will be based at Glanamman

A Welsh council is looking to take on a qualified belly dancer.

Carmarthenshire Council has six courses lined up across the county, but the adult education department cannot find a tutor to take classes in the village of Glanamman.

The course begins next month, and the authority is keen to find a candidate with teacher training qualifications.

Development officer Sian Merlys said it was difficult finding tutors for the more unusual subjects in rural areas.

"We try to offer as many different types of courses to appeal to all sorts of people," she said.

"We started the belly dancing courses last year and they are very popular because it's a nice way of doing a bit of exercise and having some fun at the same time. We do have men doing it as well.

School leavers

"The problem we have with our courses is attracting tutors because we cover such a wide area. There are tutors in the higher populated areas but it's far more difficult to find tutors in the rural areas."

She said although the belly dancing courses did not lead to any formal qualification it was a way of attracting people to adult education.

"What we find with belly dancing is we get people who would not traditionally return to adult education after leaving school.

"It's like dangling a carrot to get them back onto more formal courses."

There is no closing date for applications but Ms Merlys said with the course due to start in mid-September she needed to fill the post as soon as possible.

She said the ability to speak both English and Welsh would be a great advantage.