Train the Trainer

Our Train-the-Trainer program implies a fundamental shift in youth empowerment and HIV prevention. We insist on the significance of educating social actors who can enhance the ripple effect of HIV prevention from their cultural reservoir.

Afro-Caribbean Dance Mediation

Afro-Caribbean Dance Mediation is a very innovative and holistic approach to HIV prevention centered on the notion of embodied knowledge. Participants gain both self-awareness and a sense of belonging that empower them through body-centered experiences.

We conceptualize dance mediation as a non-verbal communication with reality. Dance, as an emotional and social activity, help young people to develop greater confidence, self-respect, and concern for the community.

The program opens space of insights about HIV prevention gained through dance as embodied knowledge and facilitate the cultivation of multiple intelligences, including both the intellectual and the physical. This will enable young people to engage both mind and body when making important decisions about their social interactions. 

Afro-Caribbean rhythms as artistically rich and culturally relevant provide the "forms" and content from which to explore relationships - self to self, self to peers, and self to the community - with the assumption that positive relationships and a positive mind-body awareness will empower young people to be assertive about their choices, well-being and life in general. 

Storytelling Dynamics

The program convey Caribbean folktales as entertainment-education forces to enact culturally familiar roles, elicit the youths' own ideas and bring out traumatizing events. Moreover, it fosters personality development and the achievement motive could be learned by exposing participants to stories with strong achievement motive content. It is the folktale's ability to incorporate new elements from the dominant culture that make it a contemporary instrument to effect change and, at the same time retain the basic cultural values of the ethnic group.

Engaging at-risk adolescents in active listening about HIV prevention, the dynamics take place in a group setting where role models and positive values are illustrated through Caribbean folktales. Through the Caribbean oral heritage, the youth can interact with characters who encourage them to learn the sense of honesty, respect, love, team spirit, integrity, self-esteem, hard work, education, fun, happiness, advancement, wealth, religion, the right to choose, and so much more.  

Social Photography Workshop

Participants learn rudimentary photography skills while gaining a deeper understanding of their surrounding community and HIV-related issues. Over a 10-weeks period, they engage in thoughtful communication that focus on connecting art and meaning to concrete topics of self-identity and healthcare. This workshop encourages students self-expression as it gives the confidence to take on more powerful roles in transforming the way we think about HIV/AIDS.