Скачать или смотреть RaveSafe-DanceWize - A 25 Year Retrospective

DanceWize (formerly know as ‘RaveSafe’) was first formed in April 1995 by Melbourne ravers Michael Arnold and Melissa Dent, who volunteered their time to a grassroots service at bush parties (doofs) and other raves to address the potential harms of drug use in the scene they loved most. The program name ‘RaveSafe’ was taken directly from the title of a video produced for rave VJs by Tribes Project, of HRVic’s sister-organisation the NSW Users and AIDS Association (NUAA), in Sydney in 1993. The visuals in the Rave Safe video subtly prompted ravers to be aware of sexual health and BBV risks.

During its first year, RaveSafe produced a photocopied educational resource ‘Bonk Safe! Blast Clean! Dance Proud! Party Hard!’, which was distributed at parties RaveSafers were attending. During this time contact with HRVic was made and the possibility of funding was discussed. A grant application was submitted with Department of Human Services in March 1996 and was eventually approved in January 1997.

At first RaveSafe’s funding was infrequent, with the first funding period ending in October 1997. By the time DanceWize received and started their second funding period, co-founder Michael Arnold had left, with Melissa taking the reins from February to August in 1998. In 1999 RaveSafe became fully administered by HRVIC, with a new peer named Viv running the project in 1999 and Phoebe took over in 2000.

Purple Hazelwood then coordinated RaveSafe into a new era with the name change to DanceWize in 2008 in response to cultural changes in the dance party and rave scene and moved on in February 2009.

In April 2009 Danny Holness returned as Coordinator, with Farshid Zaman starting as the Assistant Coordinator having volunteered as a KPE for two years. In July 2010 Danny moved to to England, Farshid Zaman assumed the Coordinator position and, after a long search for an Assistant Coordinator, Fiona Harten was appointed to the position. Farshid and Fiona introduced rovering services to the DanceWize program model to better service larger festivals. Farshid Zaman left the role in October 2011, Fiona Harten became the coordinator and Dan Burns stepped into the assistant role, having volunteered for a year. Fiona and Dan worked to further legitimise the program through the implementation of more structured intervention reporting and secured funding through FebFast to develop a DanceWize series of substance specific resources, and the team had grown to almost 30 volunteers. In July of 2013 Fiona left to pursue her travel goals. Again the roles were redefined with Dan Burns taking on a Co-Coordinator position along with former volunteer Steph Tzanetis, who worked for HRVic on other projects too.

Joel Heferen and Andy Doria both joined as staff for the 2015-2016 Summer season, and Joel continued for another year managing targeted projects eg. MSM sex on premise events. In the 2015-2016 season the DanceWize, set a new record by attending 27 events and in 2016 they won the Minister of Health award for Outstanding Achievement by Volunteers Supporting Diversity. In July 2016 Mala, a mental health nurse from the Netherlands, who worked for both Trimbos Institute’s DIMS and a DW-like program ‘Unity’ joined the HRVic staff until the end of the 2016-17 Summer. Mala translated Drug-related 1st Aid, an accredited Dutch training and tailored them to the Australian setting. Also in 2016-2017 season, Nick Wallis joined HRVic DanceWize’s staff as the communications officer and Linda Callan as projects officer; and Steph was invited to join a group of representatives advocating for pill testing services, which later became known as the STASAFE Consortium who delivered Australia’s first pill testing service at a festival in Canberra, 29 April 2018. In 2017, HRVic and NUAA entered in partnership for NUAA to adopt HRVic’s DanceWize program model; and HRVic DanceWize’s Steering Committee was established to operate as the governance body for the program to promote collective decision-making and grassroot initiative.