What types of AIDS education can be offered outside schools?

What types of AIDS education can be offered outside schools?

Not all young people are fortunate enough to attend school. This might be for one of a variety of reasons. In some countries, it is necessary to pay for schooling, and poor families may be unable to afford to send a child to school, or may be unable to send all their children to school. Sometimes children will be required to work, making them unavailable for school. In other areas, young people may live in areas where a local school is not accessible. In some situations, young people may have been excluded from school for reasons that might be due to the young person’s behaviour, academic or intellectual abilities, or due to discrimination. Some young people play truant, and will have only very limited attendance. The proportion of young people who attend school differs markedly in various parts of the world.

Clearly, although AIDS education offered through the school might reach many young people, it will not reach all, and other forms of education are required.

One of these is the media. Most young people will, at some time, be exposed to the media. This can include newspapers, television, books, radio, and also traditional media such as street performances or murals. One advantage of media-based AIDS education is that it can target specific groups amongst the population. If the message is to be targeted at young people, then it will be placed in media that are favoured by this audience.

Many countries have tried some form of AIDS education advertisements, films, or announcements. A good example of this is the LoveLife campaign in South Africa, an education program ‘by young people, for young people’. LoveLife used eye-catching posters and billboards to tell young people that sex was fun, but that it could be dangerous, too. The campaign also inserted its message into TV soaps that were popular with young people, and used rap and kwaito music to get its message across.

There are, however, problems with media-based campaigns. It is hard to know to what extent the AIDS information has reached young people, and it is difficult to gain continued funding for initiatives whose success is so hard to measure.

Another way in which young people receive information about sex and HIV is through their peers. This is something that happens anyway to a great extent – many young people receive their first information about sexuality from their friends, although this information is often distorted and inaccurate. This type of peer education can be harnessed, though, and used to convey accurate, targeted information. Peer education is, quite simply, the process by which a group is given information by one of their peers who has received training and accurate information. This is a method often used with groups which have been marginalised. Such groups might have cause to distrust information given to them by an authority figure; if the same information comes from a member of their own group, however, they may well listen. This method of information-provision is often used with such groups as sex workers, the homeless, or drug-users. There is no reason that this method shouldn’t be used with young people, however, and in many parts of the world, it is used. Indeed, it is particularly appropriate for young people who do not attend schools and will not have an opportunity to benefit from an AIDS education curriculum.

AIDS education for the future

Although the debate continues about how much – if any – AIDS education young people should receive, studies continue to show that being informed about the facts and the dangers of HIV and AIDS enables young people to protect themselves and is a crucial tool in the battle against HIV. There is no cure or vaccine for HIV, so prevention is the only way in which we can place any limits on the epidemic. One of the most economical and effective means of HIV prevention is education – involving young people themselves in the HIV prevention effort.

On a global level, America’s disposition towards the promotion of abstinence-only education is cause for concern. America’s spending on HIV prevention around the world exceeds that of any other country, and is to be welcomed – as long as it doesn’t use this money to promote its pro-abstinence-only views of AIDS education. These views – which have been shown to be less successful than comprehensive AIDS education techniques which include an abstinence element – may prove to be damaging to America’s domestic AIDS prevention work ⁴. When exported to high-prevalence countries in Africa, they could prove disastrous.

Whenever educators and planners ask, and listen to young people, they are told time and time again that young people overwhelmingly ask for adequate AIDS education. In most parts of the world, this means more AIDS education than they are presently getting. Young people know that they have the right to the information that enables them to safeguard their lives and those of their sexual partners – they must be listened to, and provided with that information clearly, openly and honestly.