Managing the Spread of HIV/AIDS and STDs through Migrant Youth

Through this project, young people are empowered with preventative health information, and then asked to communicate their new knowledge to fellow migrant youth, as well as family members, through interpersonal channels. In this sense, education, transferred through youth, is a means for bringing accurate health information to rural areas with marginalised migrant communities.

Specifically, basic health knowledge is offered through the use of visual aids during 4-hour classroom sessions, which are organised at the young migrants' leisure. The 60-minute audiotape offers the salient points of the topics for the trainers; handbooks and printed literature in the migrants' own language, featuring pictures of the disease symptoms, serve as supporting documents in the education process. The trainers encourage youth in attendance to talk to peers about what they have learned at their workplaces (e.g., during lunch breaks), in their boarding places, and with their families.

HIV/AIDS, Reproductive Health, Youth.

PCDSD Network notes that, according to participants, the knowledge gained through the programme is "quite new to them. The youth who have got the correct knowledge have been showing eagerness to educate their peers as well as their own brothers and sisters at home. This will allow them to prevent getting contaminated with the disease."

Organisers also reflect on the business community's participation in the peer education initiative; this support "is gradually growing although they did not respond positively at the very inception. This support will enable us to retain the knowledge in the work places and allow it to spread to the new migrants who come for work without knowing the basics of HIV/AIDS and STDs. The project will also educate the business community who are keen to employ the migrants, on the importance of educating their staff on HIV/AIDS and STDs."