Author: Anastasia Petrova, Russia
“Congratulations to “FOCUS-MEDIA” and dance4life for the victory in presidential grants competition!” This was the message Ekaterina Artemenko, the coordinator of projects in Moscow “FOCUS Media” foundation, got from her colleague around midnight on July 31. The happy news spread quickly and all danc4life project members knew about it the next day. The initiative was supported this year by the Presidential Grant Foundation.
Starting from 2006, non-commercial organizations in Russia are supported by the president. This was the first year of the presidential grant competition. For 10-year existence, the system of finance distribution was quite complicated: at first the head of the state approved the list of non-commercial organizations (NCO) – the receivers of grants with his decree, and then the NCOs were included into the finance distribution system. In 2017, the procedure was simplified: grant participants may apply online. There has appeared the unified operator – presidential grant foundation.
Coordination committee summed up the results of the first competition on 31 July, 2017. There were 970 NCOs-winners from 79 regions in the winner list, which is around 15% of all applications. There were 6,623 projects that participated in the competition. Three Russian NCOs, included in the register as “foreign agents,” are among presidential grants recipients. Operator has distributed grants with the total sum of 2.25 billion Russian Rubles within the first competition. The most financed project among the 12 grant departments was “Citizen Health Protection, Promotion of Healthy Lifestyle.”
Recognition of merit
Public Health and Social Development Foundation “FOCUS -MEDIA” celebrated its 20th anniversary last year. “We are happy to have received this grant, but frankly, we are also a bit surprised,” the employees of the foundation are saying.
There is a lot of work ahead even after receiving the grant. Financing will allow to run the project dance4life in 14 Russian cities. It will also include a module on tobacco addiction prophylaxis and anti-tobacco campaigns. Besides, the project will include additional component in the form of helping teenagers and young people with HIV. They will be able to volunteer in the project and take part in all of the activities.
Dancing is a universal language
Dance4life project, which won the grant, is a unique international initiative. The initiative aims at promotion of healthy lifestyle among young people, preservation and promotion of reproductive health, HIV infection prevention and many more socially important diseases. More than two million people from 20 different countries have been a part of the programme over the years of its existence.
The project started in 2005 in Russia. It began after “FOCUS Media” Foundation director Evgenia Alekseeva met the Dutch creator of the project Ilco van der Linde. After this meeting, she decided to take this international initiative to Russia. “FOCUS Media” Foundation existed for seven years by that time, dealt with health protection and, in particular, with AIDS prophylaxis among youth. That is why the aim of the project (which includes the prophylaxis of socially important diseases, addiction formation and strengthening young people) coincided with the foundation’s activity.
Now dance4life is a project with 12-year-old history in Russia, and it runs in more than 14 regions. During the years of its activity, it managed to involve around 220,000 young people, who say that dance4life has changed their lives. The keys to the uniqueness of the project are youth culture, energy and creativity that help spread the information on preserving health and taking responsibility for one’s life. Dancing as a part of the project is a universal language, connecting dance4life participants from all over the world.
The results will be presented on AIDS 2018
There were some guests in the ““FOCUS -MEDIA” Foundation office a week before receiving the news about winning the grant. Yulia Koval-Molodtsova, a former project coordinator in Russia and now an associate in the main dance4life office in the Netherlands, came to Russia to talk about the new working models.
After running the same programme since 2005, the international dance4life team has been working on the analysis and improvement of the project methodology. While the old working model made an accent on youth education, the new programme aims at self-realization of society. Now the programme invites young people on a journey: from relationship with oneself, to the relationships with partners and society in general. The components of HIV and sexually-transmitted infections (STI) prophylaxis, issues of contraception and gender equality are now skillfully connected with such important for young people topics: self-knowledge, establishment of personal boundaries, and control of social stereotypes. The principles of work have not changed: to inspire, teach, involve and celebrate. Due to the “peer to peer” approach, young people become the driving force of the project.
New model of work will be approved during this year. The pilot project is running in two regions. In Nizhny Novgorod, where the project is successfully running from the start, they work in cooperation with local schools. The new contacts will be established from scratch in Kolomna, a city in Moscow region, where dance4life is just starting. The model of the project is universal and can be used for both learning and leisure purposes of young people.
Even though the project will be financed by the Presidential Foundation till the end of 2018, the managers of the project would like to sum up the first results of work by next summer. The results of work and experience in the area of HIV/AIDS among youth will be introduced on the International AIDS Conference in 2018. The focus of this conference will be on Eastern European and Central Asian countries.
