What makes us different?

What makes us different ?

Our approach reformulates HIV prevention and awareness at the level of individual behaviors, and also brings attention to a different kind of public intimacy and familiarity within the Caribbean flow of collective life.

Unlike other clinical HIV prevention endeavors, Transdiaspora Network (TDN) helps to create a body of knowledge that is dynamic and transferable (trans-experience), and promote youth-driven participation within a constructive circulation of alter-native knowledge. Our Train-the-Trainer program has the particularity of combining the Caribbean cultural tradition of storytelling, music and dance to foster a dialogue with at-risk young people. We not only work at one level at a time, but simultaneously on three levels: educational, therapeutic and recreational.

At the CarHIV Youth Society (CYS), participants evolve from the peer-to-peer group dynamic to engage proactively in new zones of relational community that innovatively draw attention toward social transformation and collective empowerment. These new zones transform youth into agents of change seeking a transformative or dialogical educational process in which to explore their own lives and realities.

Glossary

Trans-experience: TDN has coined this term to define what the youth have learned from the Train-the-Trainer program, along with his/her own individual experiences, can be passed to their peers and the community as knowledge to empower others, address institutional barriers and remove the stigma attached to HIV. It is a more fluid understanding of the relations between the individual and his surroundings.

Alter-native knowledge: when dealing with HIV prevention's health and sexuality aspects, our materials and communication style take into account the oral tradition that flourishes in the Caribbean cultures as well as its musical rhythms. The use of dance, humor and short stories come with a new social meaning from tradition and culture, and they will motivate the youth to gain a better understanding of healthier social behaviors. The results will show that at-risk adolescents can win arguments by negotiating with peers nuances of meaning verbally and non-verbally. With this kind of knowledge, the youth is expected to show us what he or she knows rather than to tell us what he or she knows.