Youth Peer Health Educator Training

One of my primary project here has been recruiting and training classes of youth peer health educators. I received a grant from the US government that allowed me to hold a one week training workshop for youth who applied and were accepted into the program. I trained 20 peer educators in HIV/AIDS, puberty, STIs, sexuality, peer pressure, early marriage, early pregnancy, and other Life Skills competencies. These youth will help me to teach Health and Life Skills in 6 different Basic Schools as well as throughout the community in churches, clinics, and villages. They will also help me train youth health educators from different geographic areas of our catchment area. By the end of the year, we hope to have over 60 peer health educators actively providing health education to youth in the community. Above is a very telling picture of 2 of the trainees during a discussion on gender.

One of the peer health educator trainees practicing a presentation he prepared on puberty and the female reproductive system.

On the last day of the training, the peer health educators came to my village to practice delivering health education in the community. Above, 2 of the educators are performing a drama about the dangers of early pregnancy (pregnancy before the age of 18) and the importance of VCT (Voluntary HIV Counseling and Testing) as numerous villagers and myself look on. The training was an incredible success. It was so exciting to see youth facilitating conversations about gender, health, and development with various generations of people in the community. I am so proud of the peer health educators' hard work and commitment to improving the health of the community.