Meeting dance4life ...
Door: Robert Hoogendoorn
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Talitha & Robert
07 Februari 2014 | Nederland, Amsterdam
From now onwards I will write in English, so my foreign friends can follow the stories as well.
What a week. This week it really started with inhouse trainings by dance4life in Amsterdam. Experiencing the Dutch railways once more, which is not the most confenient way to travel anymore ;). But this could never have influence on my overall feeling of this week.
We started on Monday with an introduction of dance4life. They started with some key figures which always have an amazing impact, realizing how wrong the world sometimes is. Every day there are still 6300 new HIV infections in the world. And most of these invections are among young people, which is the most vunerable group. And one of the main problems is the lack of knowledge about sex and infections. And than of course your first thought goes out to the development countries, like the African countries. But dance4life did a research among the Netherlands and 1 out 3 persons believes if you wash yourself after having sex you never can get infected. So even in well developed and rich countries the lack of knowledge about this topic can sometimes be shocking.
On my way to Amsterdam I was reading a book about this topic, which was stating that at the 16th international AIDS conference in Toronto 90% of the agenda points was focussing on the consequences of HIV and only 10% was aimed at prevention of further infections. As shocking as these numbers are, I also do understand a bit the reason why the balance is not in place. The topic is really hard to get it open on the table. Whether you are a parent, a teacher or youth leader, it's just not easy to talk about sex to youngsters from 12 years old and older. Especially when you have a religious background like myself, than it can bring extra tension to the topic. But when you hear facts like young people in the Netherlands on average have sexual intercourse at the age of 16,7 and in Kenya this is 14,6, you cannot deny to talk about this topic in an early stage to prepare them well. And that's exactly what dance4life is aiming at. Open up the discussions, bring out the facts, educate the young people to avoid that they become victims in this early stage of their lives. For me, talking about these topics so openly is also sometimes confronting, but I agree fully with their aim to help protecting young people to become victims of something they didn't understand or could have easily been avoided.
dance4life teached us their approach strategy. They have a 4-step strategy. First inspire young people with music and dance, then educate the youngsters when you have got their attention. After this activate them to become peer educators themselves and finally celebrate together the joy of life with again music and dance. In this part I see a great role of my brother and friend Mr. Mayor, who is a great musician, but moreover a great peer educator for young people. So I'm looking forward to investigate possibilities to colleborate with my great friend.
Finally we have discussed how you can change behavior. We talked through the determinants which influence behavior and shared ideas on how we could apply our experiences to make a change. Within the sharing of the ideas, you could see the amazing creativity of om my fellow group members. They are amazing and have such a huge experience among the world. I'm so looking forward to see them working in the field and be part of this group. Of course, right now all is still in such an early stage of the project and many scoping and planning still needs to be done, but i have a great feeling about the team and look forward to an amazing time in Kenya!
Coming week we will go to the Hague to be guests at IICD, an ICT development organization to learn their vision and prepare ourself even more. 1,5 week before lift off ... ;)
What a week. This week it really started with inhouse trainings by dance4life in Amsterdam. Experiencing the Dutch railways once more, which is not the most confenient way to travel anymore ;). But this could never have influence on my overall feeling of this week.
We started on Monday with an introduction of dance4life. They started with some key figures which always have an amazing impact, realizing how wrong the world sometimes is. Every day there are still 6300 new HIV infections in the world. And most of these invections are among young people, which is the most vunerable group. And one of the main problems is the lack of knowledge about sex and infections. And than of course your first thought goes out to the development countries, like the African countries. But dance4life did a research among the Netherlands and 1 out 3 persons believes if you wash yourself after having sex you never can get infected. So even in well developed and rich countries the lack of knowledge about this topic can sometimes be shocking.
On my way to Amsterdam I was reading a book about this topic, which was stating that at the 16th international AIDS conference in Toronto 90% of the agenda points was focussing on the consequences of HIV and only 10% was aimed at prevention of further infections. As shocking as these numbers are, I also do understand a bit the reason why the balance is not in place. The topic is really hard to get it open on the table. Whether you are a parent, a teacher or youth leader, it's just not easy to talk about sex to youngsters from 12 years old and older. Especially when you have a religious background like myself, than it can bring extra tension to the topic. But when you hear facts like young people in the Netherlands on average have sexual intercourse at the age of 16,7 and in Kenya this is 14,6, you cannot deny to talk about this topic in an early stage to prepare them well. And that's exactly what dance4life is aiming at. Open up the discussions, bring out the facts, educate the young people to avoid that they become victims in this early stage of their lives. For me, talking about these topics so openly is also sometimes confronting, but I agree fully with their aim to help protecting young people to become victims of something they didn't understand or could have easily been avoided.
dance4life teached us their approach strategy. They have a 4-step strategy. First inspire young people with music and dance, then educate the youngsters when you have got their attention. After this activate them to become peer educators themselves and finally celebrate together the joy of life with again music and dance. In this part I see a great role of my brother and friend Mr. Mayor, who is a great musician, but moreover a great peer educator for young people. So I'm looking forward to investigate possibilities to colleborate with my great friend.
Finally we have discussed how you can change behavior. We talked through the determinants which influence behavior and shared ideas on how we could apply our experiences to make a change. Within the sharing of the ideas, you could see the amazing creativity of om my fellow group members. They are amazing and have such a huge experience among the world. I'm so looking forward to see them working in the field and be part of this group. Of course, right now all is still in such an early stage of the project and many scoping and planning still needs to be done, but i have a great feeling about the team and look forward to an amazing time in Kenya!
Coming week we will go to the Hague to be guests at IICD, an ICT development organization to learn their vision and prepare ourself even more. 1,5 week before lift off ... ;)
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