Francis Owusu has taught thousands of young people self-esteem and a sense of community, through the performing arts.
For ACT Local Hero Francis Owusu, dancing isn't just a form of expression. It's a way of life.
As the child of Ghanaian migrants, Francis experienced prejudice and racial taunts from a young age.
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"I would say to my mum, I wish I was like everyone else," he says. "I wanted just to fit in."
He says this early feeling of being left out was what made him turn to a life of crime; by the age of 14, he had a criminal record.
But that all changed when he joined his new high school's Rock Eisteddfod after his parents moved to Canberra.
The confidence he got from performing helped him turn his life around, and he soon began teaching dance at a high school at Lanyon.
He started up his performing arts venture, Kulture Break, more than 10 years ago. It's an operation which has also spread to the United States, China and Taiwan.
In Canberra alone, 20,000 young people have been involved in the venture.
KultureBreak also engages in community service, and it's for that fact as much as his commitment to the arts, that Francis has been awarded the ACT Local Hero award for 2013.
