[afro-nets] Curriculum on HIV/AIDS education in secondary schools (5)

[Wyva Hasselblad <crwrcsen@sentoo.sn>]

RFI: Curriculum on HIV/AIDS education in secondary schools (5)
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Dear Ricarda,

we have developed a 36 session manual for out-of-school adoles-
cents. It wouldn't be useful to you as it is in our local lan-
guages (Woloff, Pulaar, French).

However, here are some things we are learning:

1. HIV/AIDs education needs to be embedded in reproductive
health education.

2. HIV/AIDS and reproductive health education need to be embed-
ded in values formation, confidence building, communication
skills, gender relationships, intra-family relationships, deci-
sion-making, "choosing a future".

3. Knowledge alone is useless. The ability to integrate knowl-
edge into practices (behaviour) and attitudes that are affirm-
ing, self- protecting, and others-protecting is essential. Just
as learning that cigarette-smoking is harmful to self and others
will not change most people's smoking habits.

4. In order to put knowledge into practice, adolescents (and
others) need the support of family, reference group, and commu-
nity. So, education programmes are most useful (in or out of
school) if parents, families, educators, community leaders are
going through the same education. This creates solidarity, a
sense of excitement that the community is discovering its con-
nectivity, its best values and intentions, its best possibili-
ties for creating a healthy future for everyone.

5. Adolescents can be change agents - and those who have gone
through a real change in their own attitudes and practices are
very well prepared to share those new ways with others - with
their peers, with their families, with their communities. So, we
build in a "post-programme" phase (that can go on for years) in
which the participants become community activists. They use
theatre, music, radio, all kinds of local communication channels
(these differ from society to society) to bring about change and
growth in all the various dimensions of their own communities/
neighborhoods/villages. Eventually, they begin to build coali-
tions with other activists groups and this becomes way more dy-
namic than any "project" or "programme" - if becomes in fact a
social movement.

By the way, we use a lot of the "Training for Transformation"
approach to build confidence, the ability to use critical think-
ing, competence in using a vast array of tools and exercises.

6. Finally, the one thing that never works is having teachers
(or other adults) stand up in front of a class and lecture about
HIV/AIDS.

Hope this is helpful.

Wyva Hasselblad
Consultant
Senegal
mailto:crwrcsen@sentoo.sn