Students are learning about sex and relationships through a hip-hop dance programme

MANY ADULTS remember the unfolding Aids pandemic during the 1980s. This new disease bulldozed through society, dragging a nasty host of prejudices in its wake: already marginalised gay men and drug users were ostracised, HIV sufferers were avoided, and the nation responded to urban legends about infected needles by carefully checking their cinema and bus seats. During this decade, most sex education in schools consisted of an embarrassed biology teacher glossing over the raw facts of reproduction.

Today’s Transition Year students, however, learn about sex education through the Social, Personal and Health Education programme. Meanwhile, the world has developed a better understanding of the causes and effects of the HIV virus. But as the panic and fear over HIV subsided, the issue stopped grabbing the headlines, and a certain complacency set in.

Earlier this month, the World Health Organisation reported that the rate of HIV infection more than doubled in Europe between 2000 and 2008, while the Irish Health Surveillance Protection Unit also reported a significant rise in new infections. St James’s Hospital in Dublin has recorded a 20 per cent rise over the past year.

Since 2003, dance4life, a programme aimed at secondary students, has used hip-hop dance and music to inspire and educate about HIV and Aids. The same dance, with some local variations, is taught in 19 different countries to over 680,000 students across the world, in places as far apart as Russia, Sierra Leone and Ireland.

This year, 12 schools across Ireland have taken part in the programme, which is organised and delivered by the Irish Family Planning Association. Erica Rodger, a 15-year-old TY student at Breifne College, Cavan, explains how it works: “The course takes place over two days. On the first day, it started with a short video on HIV and Aids, highlighting the impact it has on the developing world. We talked to the instructors, some of whom were HIV-positive or had a HIV-positive family member. We also learned how it is and is not passed from one person to another. Then we were taught a dance and did a rap about HIV and Aids. It was good fun – simple and effective.”

On the second day, students take on skills4life, which teaches more about HIV, safe sex and contraception. Students learn how to use condoms, but they are also empowered to discuss and understand their own relationships. A third phase, act4life, encourages students to become agents of change: volunteering, fund-raising, or simply spreading awareness. Dance4life International aims to have created one million agents of change by December 2014.

A LARGE GROUP of Transition Year students at Sutton Park School, north Co Dublin, can see the benefit. “A few months have passed since we learned this dance, but it’s still very fresh in our minds,” says one student, 16-year-old Adam Hoskins. “We weren’t just being spoken at about Aids and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), but were interacting with people living with HIV, dancers, and musicians. Of course, some students were a bit reserved at first, but everybody was soon happy to get involved.”

The course also clears up some misconceptions about the virus. “The HIV-positive speakers were very nice, there was nothing weird about them,” says Niamh Lowley, aged 15. “We saw that different people can contract it for different reasons.”

The IFPA’s provision of information and education on topics such as sex, contraception, and STIs, both through this and other programmes, has often put the organisation at odds with the Catholic Church. However, Ann Kennedy, dance4life co-ordinator, says they have not been refused access to religious schools to date, adding that two of the 12 participating schools are Catholic schools.

The programme is still in its infancy, and the IFPA hope to expand it in coming years, says Kennedy. “We’ve brought it to 12 schools and also to Youthreach centres. Next February, we’ll deliver it to a group of separated female children seeking asylum, who are aged 15-18. The student and teacher feedback has been very positive. It’s not about scare tactics, but instead provides students with the knowledge and resources to fight against HIV and STIs.”