European guidelines for youth AIDS peer education - University of ...

International agreements in health promotionOttawa CharterOne of the most important international documents concerning health promotion is the Ottawa Charter (seeappendix). A result of the first International Conference on Health Promotion in 1986, the Charter was aresponse to the growing expectations for a new public health movement around the world. In the Charter,health promotion is defined as ‘the process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve, theirh e a l t h .’The objectives for health promotion action given in the Charter are:1 build healthy public policy2 create supportive environments3 strengthen community action4 develop personal skills5 reorient health services.The Ottawa C h a r t e racknowledges that people are themselves their main health resource. It also commits tohelping people get healthy and maintaining their health through financial and other means. Moreover, theC h a r t e rrecognises the voice of local community as essential in matters of health. The C h a r t e rwas laterintegrated into the well-known World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Health for All document.Dublin Consensus StatementIn Dublin, 1995, the WHO Regional Office for Europe and the European Committee for Health PromotionDevelopment composed a consensus statement on Health Promotion and Health Care System Reforms 1 . Thestatement expanded on the Ottawa Charter and recognised five activities as those making the greatestcontribution to promoting better health. These included:1 strengthening the ability of communities to achieve better health – for example, helping them to settheir own priorities and plan and implement effective strategies and2 improving people’s ability to look after their own health.The first insight gained from these documents is this: health promotion and health care are moving towardsenabling local communities to control their own health programmes, giving citizens a decisive voice, andimproving health skills. Although young people are important members of the community, offering themthese opportunities is, for some, a major and controversial step. This is especially the case with HIVprevention, since it involves the sensitive subjects of sexuality and drug use.European young people todayWe may need to reconsider our views of young people. Part of the reluctance to allow young people toparticipate in important debate has its roots in 19th century attitudes towards the young. Beliefs stemmingfrom this period regard young people and children as too immature, irrational and unqualified to participatein serious decision-making. These opinions do not take stock of the fact that the current situation for youngpeople and the future they are facing is different from that which faced their parents. HIV is very much a partof this new situation.Changing this type of prejudiced attitude would involve convincing adults that young people’s participationcontributes to their personal development and involvement, the improvement of society, and would leadto the generation of more relevant and effective health promotion programmes. Because AIDS peereducation actively involves young people in the debate surrounding HIV, sexuality, condoms, and drugabuse, this can mean a continuation of the advocacy policy-makers have been working with since thebeginning of the HIV epidemic.14 European guidelines for youth AIDS peer education