PRESS RELEASE

October 27, 2003

Bringing HIV/AIDS education to high school youth
A brand new HIV/AIDS youth awareness program, to be launched by the World Population Foundation Vietnam and the US Embassy in Vietnam

On October 29, 2006, Dance4Life Vietnam, a new HIV/AIDS youth awareness program, will be launched in Hanoi.

Dance4Life Vietnam is part of the international Dance4Life project, which was founded in 2004 and will be implemented in at least eight countries this year. Dance4Life is an innovative, interactive and energetic project involving young people in different countries, providing them with an opportunity and a platform to become actively involved in the fight against HIV/AIDS. The project aims to create more awareness for HIV/AIDS prevention as well as more understanding for those people living with HIV/AIDS and the discrimination they face. Vietnam will be the second country in Asia to join Dance4Life after Indonesia.

As part of the Dance4Life Schools Project, Dance4Life Vietnam will organize 5 workshops for 500 high school students. During these workshops, HIV/AIDS information will be combined with music, dance and real life stories. As a culmination of these workshops and leading up to World AIDS day, a Dance4Life music-dance event will take place on November 25. During this event, all 500 students, together with local artists, will come together on the same day as all young people in the other participating countries around the world, and ‘dance 4 life’, as they express their common goal in the fight against AIDS.

Implementing organizations of Dance4Life Vietnam are the World Population Foundation (WPF) in partnership with the U.S. embassy and with the support of the Vietnam Administration of AIDS Control (VAAC). WPF is a Dutch non-governmental organization founded in 1987 aimed at improving reproductive health and ensuring reproductive rights in developing countries. They have been active in Vietnam since 1995. In 2004, WPF founded Dance4Life together with Stop Aids Now The Netherlands.

The U.S. embassy, through the President’s Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has allocated nearly $80 million to fight the HIV epidemic in Vietnam since 2004, including support for HIV care, prevention and treatment programs to protect the general population from suffering a generalized epidemic.

Workshops will take place at the Nguyen Thi Minh Khai High School in Cau Giay in Hanoi on the October 29 and the November 5 between 9:00-11:00 and 14:00-16:00 and on the 12th of November from 9:00-11:00 am. The Dance4Life dance event will take place on the 25th of November. Members of the press are welcome to attend all activities but should register with the U.S. embassy.

For more information please contact Ms. Valerie Jans or Ms. Hanh at WPF (04-846-4584) or Mr. Thuc Pham at the U.S. embassy (04-831-4580) , or go to the international Dance4Life website at www.dance4life.com

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