Africahit - Dare, DJ Jimmy Jatt, Weird MC, Most Beautiful Girl Dance 4 Life

The art of using dance to fight the ills of HIVAIDS has stormed Nigeria courtesy Storm Media in partnership with SchoolNet Nigeria and Dance 4 Life International. These organisations are set to join in the league of countries where Dance4Life, the youth brand of the World AIDS Campaign is being implemented. Some of the 11 other countries include South Africa, the Netherlands, Kenya, Tanzania, Germany and the United Kingdom.

Dance4Life is a HIV/AIDS focused Service Learning project that allows young people to become a Agents of Change by being motivated to conceptualize, plan and implement HIV/AIDS projects either individually or in small groups by reaching out to them through a medium universally understood by youths, dance.

Titilayo Obisesan, National Coordinator for Dance 4 Life says the concept consists of two dimensions. On one hand, there is the dance event, held every two years on the Saturday before World AIDS Day. This event is the reward for the young people being active in a life skills oriented Dance 4 Life Schools Project, developed in cooperation with local NGOs. On the other hand is Act4Life campaign which involves a comprehensive use of mass media, both electronic and print to generate a high level of awareness and create more participation of youth/civil society in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

The innovative approach of Dance4Life involves all aspects of youth culture; their icons, media, and their favourite music and dance, particularly through the participation of Dance4Life Ambassadors, who are selected Nigerian youth icons namely - Dare Art Alade, Ikechukwu, DJ Jimmy Jatt, Kafi, Jeremiah Gyang, Weird MC, Wunmi MBGN200S, Sasha, Dakore, Katung, Frank and Francisca of Big Brother Nigeria and Derele of Sound City.

By dancing for life, young people help to break-down silence and taboos. This positive effort attracts the attention of media, politicians and the general public to make a measurable difference and eventually inspire everyone to become involved over the coming years.

The unified goal of Dance4Life is to have at least 50 cities in 24 countries on all continents and one million young agents of change involved in Dance4Life by 2012 and on World AIDS Day, Saturday December 1, they will all together dance for life.

With this powerful "statement of hope", the youth are making it clear to the media and to governments that this is their greatest global challenge yet; fighting back HIV and AIDS. The one million agents of change will this way pressure their governments to keep their promise of realising the Millennium Development Goals and to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS by the year 2015.

The pilot phase of the project will involve both in and out-of school youths in Lagos, Cross River, Benue, Kano and Abuia. A state event featuring student presentations on their implemented proiects on HIV/AIDS will be held in the five states after which representatives from individual states are selected to attend a national mega dance event to be held on the Saturday before World AIDS Day, November 25, 2006. The young people at the mega dance event will be connected with their counterparts in all the other participating countries through a satellite connection and they can view young people in other countries dancing for life as well.

In a bid to provide more opportunities for young people and the young-at-heart all over the nation to participate in the project and join in the fight against HIV/AIDS, there will be a mobile phone based competition tagged "Sing to Dance4Life" which allows members of the public to make donations to the Dance4Life project by either directly entering into the competition or casting votes. Interested participants are expected to compose a one-minute HIV/AIDS awareness song after which they will call a specific number which allows them to select a beat and sing their composed songs to it.

Ten of the best songs will be shortlisted and aired on a weekly radio program so that members of the public can vote for their winning songs. At the close of the weekly programs, all the winning songs will be collated and a final winning song emerges which becomes the Theme Song for Dance4Life.

Dance4Life is being implemented in Nigeria by Storm Vision, a leading media production company and SchoolNet Nigeria, a non-governmental organisation dedicated to development of the education sector and both organisations comprise the National Concept Owner. The project is also in partnership with established NGOs in the field of HIV/AIDS namely, Youth Empowerment Foundation (YEF), Education as a Vaccine against AIDS (EVA), Adolescent Health and Information Programme (AHIP), Girls Power Initiative (GPI) and Journalist against AIDS (JAAIDS).