In 2019 the world famous youth program Dance4Life came to Kyrgyzstan. This means that young people in the republic will now be more informed about reproductive health and healthy sexual behaviour.
One of the Dance4Life champions in Kyrgyzstan, Temirlan Irysbekov (20 y.o.), told AFEW International what this project means for him and shared interesting observations from his practice of working with adolescents.
How did you come to the Dance4Life project?
My coordinator in social organization “Red Crescent” told me about this project and offered to apply. I liked the idea because such areas as Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR), surfactants and HIV/AIDS are very important for society. I always wanted to help people by volunteering, conducting trainings in schools and universities, and I liked it.
What do you do for a living?
I am a part-time student at Bishkek State University, freelance programming for companies from the West. Now I work as a barista in Beeline’s office and also do an internship there as a programmer. And for the last four years, I have also been a volunteer at the “Red Crescent” in Kyrgyzstan.
What does it mean for you to be a leader, a champion of Dance4life?
In my understanding, a leader is a person who is listened to by other people, who can deliver any information beautifully and competently. At the same time, to be the Dance4life Champion is a great pride. To be the Dance4life Champion means to share information with people. This project has given me self-confidence, a motivation that drives me to help people. I can confidently support, motivate people around me.
Dance4life aims to work with young people to develop leadership and maintain reproductive health, prevent HIV and sexually transmitted infections. How do you feel about these topics in your environment? Have you and your peers been enlightened on them in school?
My friends are not well informed about the SRH content, as teachers in schools and universities do not talk about it. They don’t even know how to use contraception or how HIV is transmitted. There was a situation when I heard from friends that HIV is transmitted through saliva. I gave them a little training where I told them how HIV is actually transmitted, gave them arguments to dispel all doubts, and shared with them information about contraception.
When I was a schoolboy myself, we had only one class hour dedicated to SRH in all years. When the Red Crescent volunteers started telling us about men and women health, many became shy, turn away, and even cried. Over time, when I shared with people that it is okay to know about your health and we need to know that to protect ourselves, their points of view changed and they became interested and now they can share this knowledge with others.
Why is it important, in your opinion, to be enlightened on these topics?
During my work with various projects, I have repeatedly encountered horrific stories that could have been warned if people knew more about their health and how to keep it. At one of the medical institutions during the training we were told the story of a girl who was playing with her brother’s clothes and decided to try on his pants. At this time she noticed blood – that was a day when her first period started. At that moment, she thought she was pregnant and decided to commit suicide.
What do you remember most about Dance4Life?
At Dance4life we become not just coaches for the guys, but friends that they can trust.
One day, a guy from our team shared his problem with me: he didn’t know how to deal with alcohol addiction. He told his parents he needed money to eat or for smth else, but he actually went to the nearest store and bought himself a beer. It had been going on for a while and he didn’t know how to stop. I redirected him to a youth center with qualified psychologists. At first, I wanted to accompany him, but I realized that he should be willing to do it himself. He made me a promise to come there.
