Meeting Young People on the Move: Training Helps Migrant Youth in China Develop Skills for Life

This PATH article presents, through the experience of a Chinese youth, the results of a vocational school "life-planning skills” training, part of the China Adolescent Health Project, in an urban centre in China’s Hubei province. The training uses games, role-playing, and discussion to help students set life goals and avoid pitfalls. It is part of a comprehensive programme to meet the needs of young people, including those who migrate for school and work. The programme includes a life-planning skills training that takes place in schools, school dormitories, and workplaces as part of a large-scale project for improving the health of youth in China, implemented since 2000 by PATH and the China Family Planning Association.

As stated here, the vulnerability of young people is increased by the loss of family and community support due to migration and by poor knowledge and inability to communicate about topics that are traditionally taboo, such as romantic relationships, sex, contraception, condoms, and sexually transmitted diseases. According to the student, Yangzong, “I learned a lot of information about drugs, AIDS, and sex.” She stepped up to become a peer educator, or leader of the trainings. “I gained self-confidence and learned to speak in public,” she reports. Yangzong has since helped more than 500 fellow students in her school to "become better equipped to stay healthy and achieve their goals."

The programme overcame business leaders' initial hesitation to host the training through holding demonstration meetings and through support from local government. "For example, one company headquartered in Shenzhen employs more than 10,000 people in 40 sites throughout the country. PATH and the Family Planning Association first trained human resource managers at individual sites. The managers in turn provided life-planning skills training to employees. An evaluation at one site indicated that the dropout rate among female employees because of unintended pregnancy had fallen from almost 31 percent to 20 percent. "

The article includes the following example from the training: "In one session, the trainer hands everyone a piece of paper and asks them to get it signed by someone else. Then the trainer asks the participants to find a new partner and repeat the process until they each have five signatures. The trainer then asks, “Assuming that each signature means having sex, what are some of the consequences?” After some discussion, the trainer asks those with an X on their papers to raise their hands: an X means the person has HIV. “How many think you had sex with this person?” asks the trainer. Only five people raise their hand. Then the trainer asks, “Now will the people who had sex with these five people please raise their hand?” Among other lessons, the exercise highlights that HIV can be transmitted through sex and that you cannot tell by appearance who has it."

The project scale-up is described as: "Starting in 2001, PATH and the China Family Planning Association piloted the training in 12 major cities and two rural counties, and it has expanded to more than 200 additional counties with funding from the Chinese government and the UNFPA [United Nations Population Fund]. Youth programming is now an integral component of the Family Planning Association’s five-year strategic plan."