Kirov4life thanks to friends4life

In the beginning of June 2011 a 5-day training of trainers was organized in Kirov, Russia in order to create a new team and launch dance4life project in a new region! Three representatives of Russian country team provided an in-depth training for the team of 18 people. The program included team building, basics of heart connection tour, life skills program and other dance4life components as well as detailed work on practical issues such as working with partners and ambassadors, fundraising, reporting etc. The team in Kirov was an interesting mix – teachers, school and college students, social

workers from NGOs focusing on youth involvement, and even a head of prevention department from the regional state AIDS-centre.

Day 1 Day 5

It is not accidentally that Kirov became a new Russian dance4life region – the partners from Kirov took a pro-active position in getting involved with dance4life project. They covered a significant part of training expenses out of the budget of the regional state youth affairs committee. It was a couple of years ago that people from Kirov took part in a presentation of dance4life project made by the Russian team from Volgograd at the summer camp. They were so inspired by dance4life idea and spirit that immediately started making necessary steps to get involved. Now their dreams came true, the project is launched in Kirov, and let it be rolling successfully!

Kirov city walk4life!

Video about training and first Kirov team presentation (MTV-Kirov, in Russian): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3XymyYMY6w

It is notable that this training and the launch of the project in Kirov also took place thanks to the input of several private donors from Holland, who donated money in the beginning of 2011 for developing dance4life in 2 new Russian regions! At the annual international dance4life coordination meeting in Amsterdam (starting February 14, 2011) a special Experience event for the Dutch friends4life was organized. It was set up similarly to a popular TV-show Dragon’s Den when three “dragons” – successful businessmen – listened to 1-minute fundraising presentations of dance4life coordinators from 8 countries, and if interested, donated money for the given cause. The Russian presentation focused on importance of attracting more regions into the project – precisely 2 new regions, each activity worth 2500 euro, and the total of 5000 euro. The Russian coordinator was one of the last out of eight speakers, and the dragons have already donated substantial sums to other country proposals, however they did agree to cover the larger part of the requested sum – 3000 euro! After that three more people from the audience added the rest of the sum – 2000 euro which was a nice surprise. So, the entire necessary sum was collected at the international meeting in Holland. And thanks to Kirov’s input we saved some money which means it can potentially be used for launching 3 instead of 2 regions as originally planned, especially if other regions would be as active as Kirov!

Dance4life Kirov team is on its way – first events, presentations, social network group and already a flash mob team presentation video created - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vuxS4eLT7E. You don’t need to know Russian to get the spirit of the team.

At the end of the 5-day training Kirov team organized a special show for the experts – a theatre play devoted to various HIV/AIDS and youth health related topics which impressed the experts by its depth and variety of important problems covered.