• Peer Education at Volunteer Youth Corps

   

  The VYC’s peer education programme is a major component of VYC’s HIV/AIDS Strategy aimed at providing comprehensive information and education to our diverse target group particularly young people between the ages of 8 – 25 years.

   

  The peer education efforts of VYC are segmented into two distinct components:

   

  • A core of Senior Peer Educators

  • A core of Junior Peer Educators

   

  Senior Peer Educators

   

  Senior Peer Educators play a significant role in the implementation of VYC’s strategy and outreach to organised groups of youth. Senior Peer Educators are young, more experienced volunteers who are provide varied technical assistance to organised groups, agencies and institutions.

   

  As a key implementing agency of the Guyana STI/HIV/AIDS Youth Project, VYC executes an advocacy component of the project with organised groups from four sectors:

   

  • Religious/Faith Based

  • Political

  • Social

  • Private Sector

   

  Religious

   

  In an effort to increase the involvement of Faith Based organisations, VYC has forged several important alliances. One such alliance is with “Youth With A Mission”  (YWAM) a Christian organisation that is involved in outreach to the churches and church youth groups. The VYC channels its external efforts at Care and Support to People Living With HIV/AIDS through YWAM volunteers who are involved in providing care to persons hospitalised and living with HIV/AIDS.

   

  For more information on our work with YWAM contact lkyte@vycguyana.org

   

  Another level of action with the faith-based community in Guyana by VYC is our wok with the Hindu Youth in Berbice.

   

  For more information contact gscott@vycguyana.org or lkyte@vycguyana.org

   

  Political

   

  Political Leadership and advocacy is critical to stemming the impact of HIV/AIDS. VYC works with the two major youth arms of the major political parties in Guyana to develop their respective peer education programmes. VYC works with the Guyana Youth and Student Movement- West Side Youth Group and TucVille and the Progressive Youth Organisation in the area of HIV/AIDS awareness.

   

  For more information on this work contact: lkyte@vycguyana.org

   

  Social

   

  The Guyana Junior Chamber is a primary collaborating institution of the Volunteer Youth Corps. The VYC is working with Guyana Junior Chamber to develop its capacity to provide HIV/AIDS intervention in the Private Sector through the training of peer educators to intervene in the Private Sector.

   

  For more information on the work of VYC and Guyana Junior Chamber kindly contact Leona Kyte (lkyte@vycguyana.org)

   

  Public and Private Sector

   

  VYC has identified five levels of action for companies to take for the development of efficacious HIV workplace interventions. These include: HIV/AIDS Policy Development, Labour Leader Training, Training for Employees, Education programmes for Employees Families and Community Service and Volunteerism.

   

  VYC had worked with the Guyana Sugar Corporation to develop the company’s policy on HIV/AIDS. (Click here to download copy of policy) and is intensifying its efforts with GuySuCo and many companies throughout Guyana.

   

  Junior Peer Educators

   

  The Junior Peer Educators Corps of VYC is a group of young secondary schools students who came together to reach their peers as a result of a workshop conducted with a secondary school in Georgetown. This group is today made up of young people in and out of school who are involve in outreach to their peers who hang out at popular hang out spots in Georgetown and its immediate environs. They use music and drama as two approaches to reaching their peers but their work is mainly one on one education.

   

  VYC’s REACH ONE TEACH ONE CAMPAIGN

   

  Peer Educators work long and hard to reach young people with pertinent HIV/AIDS information and to encourage responsible and healthy lifestyles.

   

  VYC has developed an in-house competition to provide incentives to peer educators who reach the most persons through quality peer education.

   

  Click here to see Peer Educator of the month

  PEER EDUCATION

The VYC Peer Education Programme encompasses its actions on many fronts and was first designed in the form of a Health Messengers Programme where volunteers of the VYC would actively seek out information on many health problems and pass this information on to peers requesting such information. These information included ways of preventing various forms of illnesses, Drugs: The mal-effects of Use and Abuse to ways of alleviating suffering and revitalisation of the immune system. Volunteers, through visits to youth groups, visits to churches and various places where young people socialise would take information both orally and in the form of brochures and posters, so that young people at these sites could benefit from the information.

Today, the Peer Education Programme mainly involves peer education in the area of HIV/AIDS, through the establishment of a Peer Educators Corps within the Volunteers Youth Corps; peer educators are focussing on helping "buddy" organisations to develop their own peer education programmes. As a result, through various forms of engagement such as workshops and focus group discussion, their energies are exerted into the direction of building the institutional and technical capacity of these organisations.

PEER EDUCATION

The early HIV/AIDS messages in the media in Guyana called on youths to heed their elders “because Old People are Always Right.” They were pulled after a good deal of airing, perhaps partly because the time had come for new directions and messages, but also because some people began to question the mantra “Old People Always Right.”

Why, if old people “always right,” are our young people so unprepared for life in a hostile environment they had no part in making? Why have they failed to learn lessons of self-discipline, responsibility and respect for life? Why are they dying so young? It seemed that to some that adults, parents and teachers, must take the major share of the blame. The “Listen, Learn and Live” 1999 World AIDS Campaign theme attempted to offset the early message in that it said, in part, “Listen to children and young people, respect what they say, for it is important in their lives and engage them in conversation about issues that concern them, including sex, sexuality and HIV/AIDS. Learn from one another – children from children, children from adults, adults from children, adults from adults, HIV-negative persons from HIV-positive persons – about respect, participation, support and protection from HIV infection.

Peer Education as it relates to HIV/AIDS/STI prevention is advantageous because it is conscious of the factors that stand in the way of effective communication between adults and youths – especially where personal and sensitive issues are concerned.

The peer educators are trained using the participatory methodology technique and the Bodywork Guide, which was put together by Ms. Bonita Harris. The Bodywork Guide is intended for trainers of peer educators who will be taking up the challenge to educate their peers in HIV prevention. The trainers facilitate processes, which engage in self-examination, learning the basics of STIs, HIV & AIDS, improve their communication skills, and planning for peer education. They are trained to think and talk – about values, attitudes, beliefs, risks, behaviours, sex, sexuality and relationships. They learn about themselves – their minds and bodies and what they need to do to keep in a state of readiness – and how they can bring their peers to do the same. In the participatory education approach, trainers recognise and respect the particular resources each member brings to the group. Everyone knows things, everyone knows things and everyone learn things. Much learning takes place through thinking and talking about things. Everyone brings a wealth of ideas, skills, talents and experiences, No one person, no one type of communication skill, no one resource dominates the workshops (including the peer educator trainer). Because participatory methods do not encourage dependence on the “trainer”, they develop confidence and problem solving skills among participants. Self-confidence, independence and co-dependence are especially important for peer educators who will be on their own, relying on their own resources and that of their peers, for most of the time.  The only examinations are self-examinations and “To teach is to learn twice”.

In the context of the Guyana HIV/AIDS/STI Youth project Peer Education seeks to involve peers in communicating HIV prevention information and strategies in ways that can lead to behavioural change.

Peers are persons who are alike in several respects: age, gender, interests, language, use of time, aspirations and so on. Peer education respects the influence peers bring to bear on each other. Peer education honours informal education and recognises that education on HIV, abstinence, correct and consistent condom use, health issues, alcohol and drug avoidance has a better chance of leading to behavioural change when its source is a peer.

It is important to note that the messenger is as important as the message, so the peer educators are the messengers of the “Ready Body Project”. Trainers of peer educators facilitate workshops in the content (the “Message”) and methods (delivery techniques) that will be/or are most effective in their work with peers. Several of the training sessions have been designed to allow the educators to reflect critically on their own values, attitudes and behaviours – in order that they may make necessary changes in their own lives and better appreciate the change process that may be required of others.

We tend to think that only the young have things to learn; because the young are most at risk from HIV; and because of this very peer education “Guyana HIV/AIDS/STI Youth” initiative – it is easy to forget that all groups have their peers. “Learning is not just learning things, but learning the meaning of things. Learning is learning to think. Learning should lead to change. If there is no change, there is no learning” and remember the Messenger is as important as the Message.

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