Double dare ya!

Professor John Cameron will bring back Sustainable Development Man if 20 of his students complete dares. (Nick Pearce Photo)

Who or where you are does not matter when it comes to dares. They can be handed out or completed by anyone, anywhere. That’s one reason the Stephen Lewis Foundation’s A Dare to Remember campaign is so successful.

For Dare to Remember--a campaign to raise funds and awareness for AIDS in Africa--people can dare themselves or others to complete a certain task if they reach their fundraising goals. Sometimes people complete the dares even if they don’t reach their goals because it creates awareness and solidarity, a huge aspect of the campaign.

The campaign got rolling at Dalhousie last year when a student, Alex McPhedran, dared professor John Cameron to complete a dare if a certain number of students in his International Development Studies class completed dares. On the last day of class, the bold professor burst in dressed as a superhero in spandex. He whizzed around the auditorium and jumped on his desk—flowing cape, underwear over tights and all.

“I thought it was great and I will certainly have a hard time living that down,” said Dr. Cameron, smiling.

This year, Dr. Cameron is daring his students. He has teamed up with Bob Huish and created Team IDS, Dalhousie University.

If 20 of Dr. Cameron’s students complete dares, he will once more become “Sustainable Development Person,” his superhero alter ego who educates people on development theory. If 10 of Dr. Huish’s students complete dares, he will dye himself blue for a day. Maybe a few days actually; it depends on how hard the dye is to remove.

Last year, Dr. Cameron completed his dare on the last day of class, which is unfortunately the class with lowest attendance. This year, he will complete his dare on the second last class, the mandatory one, November 29. Dr. Huish will be blue on November 30, a class when they coincidently have a guest speaker, MLA Howard Epstein.

Professors John Cameron and Bob Huish. Dr. Huish will dye himself blue if 10 of his students complete dares. (Bruce Bottomley Photo)

Dr Huish thoroughly thought out his dare. “I figured if somebody goes to a lecture, or goes to the grocery store or goes to the bank and they're not blue, nobody notices.

“But if someone is blue, from head to toe, a lot of people will notice. And I figure if some people notice, some people will come ask why... that will give me a chance to tell them about the foundation, about the campaign and why there's a blue person running around Halifax.”

Dr. Cameron likes the A Dare to Remember campaign particularly, for several reasons. The campaign emphasizes an approach to doing things that are creative, fun and even entertaining.

“I think it’s also really important as a way of learning by doing, how to engage people in serious issues of global poverty and inequality and injustice... The standard approach doesn't always work. There’s an opportunity for students to learn a lot about how to engage other people, how to generate awareness about issues, what does work, what doesn’t work and to experiment.”

The Stephen Lewis Foundation is particularly welcoming to students as well.

Medical student Leslie Ribeiro, who created Team Dalhousie Medicine as part of the campaign, says the foundation is really supportive. “If you have any issues whatsoever, you can call them and ask for help. They call in and check up to see how you're doing. I also enjoy that Stephen Lewis Foundation supports grassroots initiatives.”

She completed a dare last year while she was a teaching assistant at Simon Fraser University. Her professor, Rochelle Tucker, dared a class of more than 400 students to complete dares. Ms. Ribeiro and the other TAs dared each other to jump into the Pacific ocean last October.
This time, she’ll jump into the Atlantic ocean for her dare. The campaign has been extended this year until December 1, World AIDS Day.

Dr. Huish said, “We sometimes forget that we lose 2.5 million people every single year to HIV. There are other problems that we face, but that's a huge one and it's something that can be prevented with the right political strategy, enough resources and enough attention.”

The Stephen Lewis Foundation supports community-based organizations working to turn the tide of HIV/AIDS in Africa. Since 2003, it has funded more than 300 projects in 15 countries.

LINKS: Dare to Remember | Team Dalhousie Medicine | Team IDS Dalhousie