dance4life in school

What dance4life does in schools!

The heart of dance4life is schools4life. Schools4life gives young people the opportunity to make a difference in their own lives and world. It teaches them the important life skills they need to protect themselves but more than this, it inspires them to go out there and actually do something about it, to become actively involved – an agent4change.

An agent4change is a young person who has participated in dance4life schools4life and is actively involved in pushing back HIV and AIDS. Together they form the driving force of the dance4life movement.

The schools programmes are built around a 4 step approach: inspire, educate, activate and celebrate.

The four steps are:

1. Inspire; dance4life inspires youth through youth icons like dance, music and ambassadors
2. Educate; dance4life educates youth in school programmes about HIV and AIDS and about prevention and what they can do about it
3. Activate; dance4life mobilises youth to use their own talent and creativity to push back HIV and AIDS and fight discrimination of thjose who are HIV positive.
4. Celebrate; every two years dance4life organizes a worldwide event years on the Saturday before World AIDS Day for all agents4change. United by one cause and connected live via satellite, they dance together for life. They dance to inspire the world to support them and they dance to remind the world leaders of the promises they made regarding the Millennium Development Goals.

According to Dao Ngoc Diep, from Phan Dinh Phung highschool, “dance4life is great initiative. People love singing and dancing. Through singing and dancing, we can bring a very meaningful message to the public in a very natural way. It is not like other projects where we have to listen to boring speeches.”

Thu Thi Ha Nguyen- student of Nguyen Thi Minh Khai high School said “I think this is a very meaningful class. Through dance4life, I have learned a lot about HIV and I also understand that we should care about people living with AIDS, not discriminate them”.

According to Chu Thi Huyen – student of Nguyen Thi Minh Khai high school, “This dance4life workshop is totally different. We participated in lots of activities: group discussion, play and dance. It helps me to openly talk about HIV and AIDS.”