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

In most European societies young people and adults may live in almost separate worlds. Each may even wishto maintain this separateness and keep the other group distant. The thoughts, feelings, pressures andattitudes of young people surrounding this issue can be difficult for adults to understand and can even bekept secret from them. Young people usually discuss their experiences of sexual intimacy and drug useexclusively with their peers.Young people as peer educatorsWhat distinguishes peer education from youth participation in general is that in peer education youngpeople are given the roles of peer ‘expert’ and ‘change agent’. They are trained and educated in the healthissues surrounding HIV/AIDS, STD, sexuality, safer sex, and drug abuse, and thereby become experts in thesesubjects relative to their peers. By taking action through various activities and discussions, they attempt togenerate change in the knowledge, attitudes, norms, beliefs, and behaviour of their peers.Partnership with adultsPeer education is an opportunity for expert adults to pass on their knowledge and experience to youngpeople. It begins by focusing on young people’s ideas about ways to tackle the problems, even if theirthoughts may appear unprofessional or unconventional in relation to established professional views. This isdone in such a way that young people are given a sense of ownership of the work being accomplished.Power is provided through a partnership with adults that includes openness and communication, mutualrespect and trust.Young people are rooted in communities via parents, schools, recreational centres, health care, communityagencies and youth associations. The organisations and agencies in these community networks can serve asa base for AIDS peer education programmes.Policy makers and planners should note that the four categories or sub-approaches of peer educationpresented in these guidelines are not specific or separate methods. They are descriptive and an attempt tosort what was found in the 11 different countries interviewed and in the international literature. In reality,peer education projects can effectively use a combination of pedagogical, diffusional, outreach and peerfacilitatedcommunity mobilisation approaches. What is most important is that peer education projects areadapted to the young people targeted, their physical, social and economical environment, theirdevelopmental stage (or age), and their own needs and issues.Peer education in school settingsPeer education can be used in a variety of settings. In schools it can be used on its own or as a complement toother health promotion programmes. Policy-makers and local planners will need to convince school staff aboutthe advantages of peer education projects that turn pupils into peer experts and agents of change, and eventuallyinclude staffing their running. Educators may see their role as providing knowledge and developing the thinkingand reasoning skills of pupils using didactic techniques. The aim may be to keep pupils healthy enough, but thiswill not improve their ability to understand and improve their health. However, this view is changing, and schoolsare becoming increasingly involved in promoting pupil health.Health promoting schoolsThe First International Conference of the European Network of Health Promoting Schools, sponsored by theEuropean Commission, the Council of Europe and WHO-Europe, took place in Greece in May 1997. At theconference, a wide range of professionals from 43 countries discussed the issue of health promotion inschools. The official resolution of the conference was that ‘Every child and young person in Europe has theright, and should have the opportunity, to be educated in a health promoting school’ (see appendix 3).European guidelines for youth AIDS peer education 17