Our Mission.

Our mission is to bring an end to HIV, STIs, unplanned pregnancies, and sexual violence. We do this by creating young, civic-minded leaders, empowered to make the best decisions for their futures.

We provide young people with the knowledge, skills and confidence to protect their health, promote safe sexual choices, and invest in their own futures. We are a charity that believes in the power of an attractive brand to create impact. We use the universal language of dance and the positive energy of music to connect with young people as equals: we’re in it together.

Together with our peer educators, we mobilize thousands of young people every year to join dance4life and take a leadership role in their societies. We call them agents4change: young leaders that shape the future of their generation through positive behavior change.

dance4life is part of a global community of agents4change that help to spread our message all across the world and turn the situation around. In Barbados, we have mobilized over 32,855 young people since 2009, and together with our partners, almost 1.9 million young people globally since 2004. 

Our Vision.

We envision a world in which all young people can be sexually healthy. A world in which young people are able to make informed decisions.

We support the building of societies that enable young people to protect themselves from disease and abuse, and experience a life in which they are no restrictions on who they might become and what they might achieve.

By releasing their leadership potential, dance4life stimulates youth to become part of the solution. Together, we help the Barbadian community acknowledge the need to invest in a healthy future and remind them that the voices of young people need to be heard. We believe that sexual and reproductive health is a right for all young people.

Our Motivation.

Unprotected sex is the second-largest health risk for young people globally. In Barbados, sexuality education, although part of the HFLE curriculum is at times limited or non-existent. 

Our young people don't have unrestricted access to condoms, contraceptive methods and health care services like testing. Discussions surrounding sex, including safe sexual practices, are not common among Barbadian households.  

Significant progress has been made in fighting the global HIV epidemic: more and more people have access to HIV treatment and the number of new infections continues to decline.

  While Barbados enjoys a similar decline, young people continue to engage in risky sexual behaviours, resulting in adverse sexual health outcomes, including unintended pregnancy, and STI transmission, including HIV.

In 2003, Dennis Karpes and Ilco van der Linde, were struck by the force of the HIV pandemic and shared a passion to use their commercial expertise to turn the problem around. They created a new way of approaching youth in schools and an iconic brand to go with it. By involving young people and engaging millions of people around the world, their vision became reality.   

In 2004, Dance4Life started in three countries: the Netherlands, Indonesia, and South Africa. Now, Dance4Life has grown into an international organization, active in 5 continents. In 2009, Barbados joined the Dance4Life family with an aim to address the gaps in our local, government-run Health and Family Life Education curriculum, and to bring a fresh, innovation- and activities-based solution to the HIV and Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) related issues young people were facing.  In 2009, we started with 1 school under the NGO Associates for International Development Inc.  We have grown significantly and as of 2021, we are currently active in 18 secondary schools, the juvenile detention facilities, and the adolescent children’s homes, operating as an independent charity, Dance4Life Barbados, registration number 971.