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“Window of Love,” Hanoi’s first sexuality education café, provides youths with consultation and counseling services on issues pertaining to sex and HIV/AIDS, as these topics are rarely discussed in schools and in the households because of cultural taboo. As a café, which is a common venue where young people mostly spend their time, Window of Love offers a place where young people can spend time talking with their friends and freely ask a female physician or an HIV/AIDS counselor information about sex and HIV/AIDS (UNDP, Online).

In Vietnam, the development of HIV/AIDS is very much dramatic. By the end of 2000, cases of infections reached over 160,000. Today, adolescents and young people account for more than 50% of the HIV cases in the country (Online). As premarital sex becomes more widespread in the country and as sex education is void both in schools and in the households because of cultural taboo, teenage children are more likely to be ignorant on the issues of HIV/AIDS and reproductive health. Reaching out to the youths, therefore, has become a top priority to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Window of Love, a sexuality education café in Hanoi, is an innovative initiative aimed to do just that: reaching out to teenage children and providing them with the most important preventative weapon against HIV/AIDS—education. With HIV/AIDS counselors and a doctor specializing in reproductive health at hand to answer questions on HIV/AIDS or health related issues, the café provides a venue where youths can freely discuss issues that their parents or teachers are too embarrassed to address. For example, a university girl went to the café because she was in love and in trouble. She had unprotected sex with her boyfriend and feared she might be pregnant. With the help of the café’s doctor and counselor, the girl was told about HIV/AIDS (its transmission and its impact) and how she could stay protected. Like this girl, most of the individuals that come to the café are ignorant of HIV/AIDS and its effects.

Window of Love on average receives about 50 customers, ages 16-24, every day (Making the Connection, Online). As Duong Thuy Hang, manager of Window of Love states, “the number of young people coming here is increasing daily” (Lexis Nexis, Online). Most of the youths who visit the café learned about the café through their friends. Because the services and education provided are anonymous, most young people are able to discuss their problems on a one-to-one basis.

This tactic of educating the youths at their venue becomes an example for tackling other social/community issues, including drugs, poverty, sex trafficking, child labor, and domestic/sexual abuse, and has potential for further development and application in countries such as Cambodia, China, Laos, and Thailand, where sexual education in schools and the households are constrained by cultural taboos. In thinking about implementing this tactic in another context, the following is important to consider for the success of the tactic 1) the location is a common venue where the targeted group usually spends their time, 2) it does not have to be youths (can also be women, sex workers, or street youths), 3) funding has to be available, 4) confidentiality is crucial, 5) the support of the government may be needed depending on the political situation of the country, 6) opposition from the community may occur, and 7) education is key. Potential challenges that may emerge include opposition from the community (if government support is available, this challenge may be overcome), difficulty to get the youths’ trust, and funding.

Window of Love opened its doors in Hanoi in 1999, following the success that a campaigning café in Ho Chi Minh City had distributing condoms and providing advice. The café in Hanoi is funded by the Vietnam National AIDS Committee and a German organization.

Completed July 22, 2003.