Peer to peer learning to prevent HIV/AIDS among youth

The complex developmental causes, consequences and challenges associated with HIV/AIDS are beginning to make an impact in all spheres of people's lives. HIV/AIDS is hitting the world's young people hardest. Young people are particularly vulnerable to HIV. More than half of the 14,000 people newly infected each day are under 25 years old; most of them are girls. Most young people have little if any access to health care services or accurate information about reproductive and sexual health or HIV/AIDS at the time in their lives when the vast majority are becoming sexually active. They are usually ill-equipped to deal with the growing risks of infection. This is coupled with a lot of misconceptions regarding HIV which commonly exists among youth.

Well informed and empowered youth are capable of making healthy living choices and motivating their peers to do the same. In addition, they can also serve as committed advocates to generate awareness and sensitivity for issues related to health viz a viz HIV prevention that concern them and their generation.

The Y4H youth activists and the accompanying local NGO facilitators who participated in GYM-2006 plan to implement awareness for HIV prevention among youth in India. They aim to:

• Organise awareness programs in 11 cities in 11 states of India on HIV prevention among youth to enable them to better protect themselves from HIV infection, especially aiming to reduce vulnerability of young girls to the infection

• Coordinate among the Y4H members at different state levels to undertake concerted advocacy to promote campaigns and programs focusing on HIV prevention among youth

• Initiate and coordinate youth led advocacy to include life skill education with special focus on healthy gender relations and prevention of HIV, as part of the main curriculum in schools in these 11 cities

• Provide a suitable enabling environment to the youth by sensitizing major stakeholders at school and community level to seek appropriate information and support for adopting healthy living habits

• Conduct E- advocacy and sharing of information, experiences at national and international level on various efforts undertaken by Y4H members on youth led and peer to peer information dissemination for preventive measures to combat HIV/ AIDS among youth

• Initiate Behaviour Change Communication activities to positively influence the behaviour of youth and equip them with requisite information and skills to adopt responsible sexual behaviour

• Advocate for the rights of People Living with HIV/AIDS(PLWHA) with national and state level policy makers