“What a fantastic training, it was great to work with so many enthusiastic young people!” Iona, 23, dance4life Youth Engagement Intern

Last weekend, the dance4life team and 10 enthusiastic young people braved the chilly London snow to attend our second Peer Education training weekend. With young people coming from as far as Glasgow (on an overnight mega bus no less) Bedford, Brighton, Hull, London and Liverpool, we all met at the very aptly named ‘Surprise Backpackers’ on Friday night ready and rearing for training to begin. The biggest surprise of the backpackers was their gravity-defying bunkbeds stacked three people high, making for high-altitude-style night’s sleep for some…

On Saturday we headed the Restless Development offices to kick off our first day of training. After filling up on morning cookies and haribo, we began by learning some new warmers from the group – our favourite being the Vaselina game, which Frank had brought all the way back from Zambia. We then got down to business chatting about peer education, HIV/AIDS and other STIs (of course sparing a few moments for a bit of dancing in between), before breaking up into groups to workshop the sex-ed skills4life sessions our lovely Youth Board created. After only a short time to prepare, our amazing peer educators wowed us all, delivering practice sessions on HIV/AIDS and stigma and discrimination. We finished the day by eating burgers the size of Rach’s face (almost true), an epic snow ball fight in Trafalgar Square, and even a few brave snow angels from Rach and Iona.

After another high-altitude night at the backpackers, the team trekked through the freshly-laid snow back to the offices ready for our final day. Over a few warm cups of tea, we chatted about the ways in which HIV affects the body, how anti-retroviral treatment works (the drugs that keep HIV+ people healthy), and the problems that people face worldwide when trying to access the treatment, care and support they need. Our peer educators then confidently led us through sessions on pregnancy, sexuality and relationships, keeping their cool despite our best efforts to play rowdy peers. We then chatted about taking action and the other opportunities available for young people at Restless Development such as the ‘Live Below the Line Campaign’, the ‘Creative Media Group’ and the ‘Student Stop AIDS Campaign’, before finishing the weekend on a high with, none other than, a dance-off – a big shout out in particular to peer educator Anne for her amazing battle moves!

A MASSIVE thank you to all our peer educators for all their hard work and enthusiasm, making last weekend such a great success! We can’t wait to see you all in action.

If you would like to become a peer educator, have dance4life come to your school or find out more about other opportunities with dance4life and Restless Development email Chelle: chelle@restlessdevelopment.org or checkout www.facebook.com/dance4lifeuk to find out more.

As the Edinburgh students make their sleepy walk though the morning dawn to the looming library across the meadows, they are greeted, every year on the 1st of December, with a beautiful surprise: huge red ribbons wrapping the trees and hundreds of ribbons flapping from the railings in the wind. Its beauty holds against the breeze, capturing the minds of all those who pass, and regardless of what feeling it might bring up it sparks a moment of thought: who did this and why?

Every year World AIDS Day brings a flurry of excitement for the Edinburgh Student Stop AIDS Society, and this year was no exception. Despite the blistering cold we stood for hours behind a stall, spurred on by the friendly competition of the other societies. We sold cakes, gave out ribbons and began to fill balloons with helium. Then, clutching 90 filled red balloons, each representing 100,000 people without access to treatment, with a little relief we let them go, letting them take our message of hope for the future – may we let off less each year.

By the evening we had on our glad rags, cabaret style, for a CaberAIDS event jammed full of singing and dance, and to our joy, a venue filled with happy people. It was the perfect end to our busy World AIDS Day. As I walked home, untying the ribbons in the meadows as I went, I thought of those whose lives we touched with our efforts that day. And I thought of the man who cycled past me on the street that evening, who I had sold a cake to in the morning, and how the red ribbon pinned to his coat fluttered furiously in the wind, making me smile.

Throughout the year, when I am asked why there are ribbons in the trees, I get to answer that it was us; we did it to remember all the people who have died from HIV/AIDS, and we hung those ribbons in a single act of solidarity.

At dance4life we think it’s important that abstinence (ie. choosing not to have sex) be included as a clear element within sex education. However, as there is no currently requirement to teach about contraception and safe sex in schools, this vote could lead to many schools in the UK only teaching young women about not having sex (also called abstinence-only education) and not covering other important elements within sex education.

Studies have shown abstinence-only education is not effective in decreasing the risk of HIV or unplanned pregnancy. We also think it’s weird to make any element of sex-education compulsory for young women and not young men. As a result we’re standing up for comprehensive sex and relationships education, and we want you to get involved too. Just follow the instructions in the next paragraph:

Take part in @dance 4 life action of the month by asking your MP to oppose Nadine Dorries MP’s abstinence bill. It will only take a minute, all you need to do is follow this link: http://bit.ly/zUqJVA. Repost this message on your Facebook page to support young people pushing for comprehensive sex and relationships education in all schools across the UK.

“I want to meet at least 5 people in the Christmas holidays and teach them something they didn’t know about HIV and dance4life.”

“I wish that all young people will continue to work together to get Johnson&Johnson and other big pharmaceutical companies to join the Patent Pool to make HIV medicine affordable worldwide!”

“My wish is that people, especially young people, stop thinking of the HIV pandemic as a taboo topic and are more open to discuss, because I think it will be a great stepping stone to finally rid our world of the virus!”

“My christmas wish is that the Nigerian government rethink their policy to discriminate against those who are gay or questioning. I wish that they think about everyone’s right to be happy.”

“I wish that…2012 is the year that the world starts listening to young people everywhere so we all have a real chance to be heard regardless of where we come from so we can stand together!”

Add your own wish on our Facebook page, or by emailing it to rach@restlessdevelopment.org and maybe we’ll feature it too.

“This year at Ratton School for World AIDS Day we decided to raise money for an HIV nurse in South Africa, as well as trying to educate all the school year groups about HIV and AIDS.

The main thing we did was to use tutor time to sell Red Ribbons – but first we had to make them! So the Ratton TAG and I spent one lunch break (and a bit of the next lesson!) pinning together all our Red Ribbons ready to sell them over the next two weeks.

Keeping in the dance4life theme of Dress, Decorate, Dance we splashed posters about the school, asking everyone to wear something red for World AIDS Day – which did the job as when we turned up on Thursday there was a healthy red glow to the corridors.

To help raise more money for the HIV nurse we sold raffle tickets outside our canteen. The main prize was some lovely HMV vouchers bought with the money dance4life gave us to support our actions. We then drew the winning raffle tickets at the school Christmas Fair on Friday (9th Dec) and the dancing was done by the lucky winner!

…and thanks dance4life for giving the Ratton TAG the knowledge to pass on!”

We’re getting so heavily into the Christmas spirit at dance4life towers, Chelle and Rach have even written a special poem to go with our Christmassy action of the month. Here goes…

This month’s Christmas action is as easy as 1,2,3…
All you have to do is hang a red ribbon on your tree.
Once this is done, send a photo into me,
To support people worldwide living with HIV!

So there you have it. To take action over the festive season, simply hang a red ribbon on any Christmas tree, take a photo and post it on our facebook page www.facebook.com/dance4lifeuk or send it in to Rach at rach@restlessdevelopment.org.

Check out Rach and Iona hanging red ribbons on a their tree above!

But wait there’s more…
We want to make a Christmas wishlist, where agents4change share their wishes on how to push back HIV and AIDS and support people living with HIV. Email your wishes to Rach, or simply post them on our Facebook page, and we’ll display them and share them as a sign of inspiration and hope for the future.

We’ll be showing off some of the best ones on our website and facebook page. Santa will also be giving away a few dance4life t shirts for some truly inspiring wishes!

Wishing everyone a very merry Christmas! May all your dance4life wishes come true!

Here’s the headline news:

• By the end of 2010, 91,500 people were living with HIV in the UK (up from 86,500 in 2009)
• 24% of these people were undiagnosed and remained unaware of their infection
• 6,660 people were newly diagnosed with HIV in the UK in 2010
• The proportion of people diagnosed late has fallen, but is still at 50%. People who are diagnosed late are 10 times more likely to die within a year of diagnosis, compared to those diagnosed promptly

What does all this mean?

Well, the number of people living with HIV is still going up, so there’s still plenty of work to be done to raise awareness and make sure people are using protection and keeping themselves safe.

Another major issue though, is:
a) nearly a quarter of the people living with HIV still don’t know they have the virus, and
b) there is a much greater risk faced by people who are diagnosed late.

This goes to back up what we at dance4life always say – if you’re sexually active GET YOURSELF TESTED!!! (and your partner too!)

For those of you looking for further information, the full Health Protection Agency report can be found and downloaded at

http://www.hpa.org.uk/webw/HPAweb&HPAwebStandard/HPAweb_C/1317131679504

We’ll be updating the information on this site and our resources over the next few days but we wanted to give you the heads up on the latest info as soon as we could, so that you knew, with World AIDS Day fast approaching, just how important it was to keep taking action!

They’ve been supported by some amazing advisers and local organisations. World famous record label and promotion company Hospital Records came to run a workshop on events management, and will be providing some equipment and competition prizes for the night.  Brook, DJ Shyne, Music Klub, R.E.D. Destiny and even members of the dance4life youth board will be on hand to provide information, entertainment, performances and all sorts.

The team have also been busily spreading the word about safe4life. Here’s a picture of Kamti and Iona in the studio of Reprezent Radio, where they were telling listeners to get down to the event.

It’s shaping up to be a fantastic World AIDS Day celebration. Why not come along and join us?

For more information email iona@restlessdevelopment.org. And here’s that flyer in full:

The End of AIDS? from Stop AIDS Campaign on Vimeo.

We need your help to make sure our leaders grasp this chance. Ask David Cameron to declare his commitment to bringing an end to AIDS.

The results of a huge clinical trial published in May prove that if people living with HIV receive anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment, it prevents the spread of the virus to their partner. It’s an incredible 96% effective!

ARVs are already keeping nearly 7 million people with HIV alive and healthy around the world. There are still 9 million awaiting this life-saving medication. By getting those people on to treatment sooner we’ll be saving their lives and helping to stop the spread of HIV.

Earlier this month Hillary Clinton committed the creating an AIDS-free generation. We need you to become one of thousands of voices calling on the Prime Minister to grasp this opportunity to lead the world in bringing an end to AIDS.

Please follow this link to ask the PM to commit the UK to this effort on World AIDS Day.

From simply wearing red for the day (or wearing Shades for AIDS), putting up banners and posters with information and facts on them, through to holding dance-offs and zumba classes, we’ve already heard all kinds of ingenious ideas for how people are going to be raising awareness.

This year’s theme “Dress + Decorate + Dance” was chosen by our amazing Youth Board, and is so simple that there are hundreds of exciting ways to get involved.

If you have a plan or an idea for what you’ll be doing for World AIDS Day on Thursday 1st December and haven’t told us yet, then drop Rach an email on rach@restlessdevelopment.org QUICK, and she’ll be happy to help in any way she can.