The Training of Trainers Manual - UNFPA

■ Tanya, age 16, three months pregnant
■ Ruslan, age 19, injecting drug user (IDU), HIV-positive for four years
■ Anna, age 15, living on the streets
(Adapt these to the situation in your country.)
Part 1
Ask the group members to stand. Give the following instructions while acting them
out yourself:
Use your body as an acting tool. Imagine yourself as a small seed; get down
on your knees and curl up. While I count to ten, start ‘growing’ (stand up) to
become a tree with your arms as branches and your fingers as fruits.
Feel a gentle breeze blowing the branches back and forth, then a storm, and
then the wind dying down. (Move your arms around gently, then roughly, and
then gently again.)
Let the tree feel itself. Let the roots move a little (move your toes) and then the
branches (hands) and the fruits (fingers).
Now imagine the tree is being poisoned. The poison enters the tree through
the roots, moving up to the fruits (fingers die), branches (hands die) and finally
the trunk. The whole tree dies. (End up by falling down to the floor.)
Next, ask the group to sit down and explain that a healthy tree gets sufficient
nutrients from its roots. But if the fruits begin to turn bad, this indicates that
something is not right. The nutrients are insufficient or the tree is being poisoned.
What we can see first are the visible signs above the ground – the fruits, leaves,
branches, and trunk of the tree begin to show signs of disease and this indicates
there might be a problem at the level of the roots. It is the same for life: problems
that we see, such as HIV infection or unsafe abortions, are the visible result of
other problems that already existed (for example, lack of protection caused by lack
of information or lack of access to health services).
Explain that problems can have both indirect and direct causes. Direct causes are
more obvious and easier to identify than indirect causes. For example, not using a
condom can be a direct cause of HIV infection or unwanted pregnancy. Abuse in
childhood that lowers self-esteem can contribute indirectly to a person engaging
in unprotected sex. Rape can directly result in unwanted pregnancy; social norms
that tolerate violence against women can lead to rape and indirectly contribute to
unwanted pregnancy.
92 Training of Trainers Manual