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Where does your money go?
$35 – Fuel Efficient Stoves, Uganda
SPW Peer Educators use practical demonstration backed up by workshops to teach local Community Action Groups how to build fuel efficient stoves while explaining the importance of environmental conservation to local livelihoods. $35 will not only fund materials for the demonstration but allow the stoves to be replicated across an entire community.
Fuel efficient stoves provide an alternative to using large quantities of firewood therefore slowing the rapid depletion of resources and eradicating the need to burn wood. Rural communities in Uganda rely heavily on their local environment and natural resources yet people living there, especially the youth, do not have access to the knowledge and skills to use these resources to their greatest benefit. SPW Peer Educators work with young people to raise awareness of environmental conservation and sustainable resource use and help young people find long-term, sustainable solutions to environmental problems.
$90 – STI Awareness Campaign, Tanzania
Makambako is a rapidly growing ‘truck-stop’ community, located on the junction of two major roads. Consequently it has rapidly increasing HIV and Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI) rates. With this in mind, SPW Peer Educators co-ordinated an STI Awareness Campaign, with a special emphasis on ‘Youth and HIV/AIDS’ to run alongside a 3 week Soccer League for 8 different youth and community teams in and around Makambo.
The Makambako League involved seminars and talks about HIV/AIDS from health workers and experts before and at half time at each game. With at least 800 people attending each game, the campaign was able to reach a phenomenal amount of Makambako residents. Using soccer as a medium to attract people proved very successful. At the final of the soccer league, a staggering 3000 people attended the game.
$175 – Youth Resource Center, Zambia: making crucial materials available to young people in rural areas
Young people in rural areas have very limited access to relevant newspapers and magazines dealing with issues affecting teenagers such as relationships and teenage pregnancy and almost no access to materials on HIV/AIDS and other health problems. These young people are often reluctant to ask questions to their teachers relating to these issues and therefore they will rely on what their friends tell them, which may not always be accurate.
YRCs are established in each of the 100 schools in which SPW works. One YRC cost just $175 and will provide 450 students with access to crucial health information. In the Youth Resource Centers, students are free to read publications, ask the Peer Educators questions or seek advice in confidence. The YRC is a focal point for SPW activities in the school - displays of relevant newspaper articles, new statistics about HIV prevalence as well as student posters and newsletters will ensure that the YRC is active, interesting and relevant for students.
$400 – Craft Project, South Africa
Young women in rural communities are particularly vulnerable, relying on their fathers or husbands for their financial needs. This makes it more likely that they will turn to risk-taking sexual behavior to supplement their meager income, dramatically increasing the risk of getting HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. Nicola and Pinky, the Peer Educators in Ngolo, near Umtata worked with local women in their community to set up a sewing group as many of the women were skilled in making traditional skirts. The Peer Educators enabled group members to identify their skills and helped with basic management, budgeting and accounting and writing a constitution for the group. The initial costs were shared between the group members but they were soon made back once the women had begun to sell the skirts. This project gives the women financial independence, making it much easier for them to avoid unnecessary risks.
$600 - Installing a Tubewell, Nepal
Most people living in rural Nepalese villages heavily rely on their natural resources. Reliance on these affects their livelihoods and their health. Without clean water, many people become ill and are unable to work or go to school but they do not realize it is because of the water they are using. SPW Peer Educators teach young people about the diseases that are carried in dirty water and how it is affecting them as well as giving practical demonstration to install a tubewell. One well can provide clean water for a whole community. Teaching young people to rectify the problem using readily available local resources within their means safeguards their health and that of the other people living in their communities.
$1,000 – Training for Health Clinic Staff, Zimbabwe
Young people in Zimbabwe have limited access to health centers. In addition they are often reluctant to use the centers because of the stigma surrounding sexual health and health workers are not perceived as ‘youth friendly’. Inadequate training means health workers are often unable to identify and meet the needs of young people and inadequate facilities means that confidentiality is not assured.
With $1,000 SPW can provide training for the staff of one health clinic in the delivery of youth friendly services. Health workers are given training in relating to young people sensitively and are encouraged to make their existing facilities more youth-centered. Topics such as HIV and AIDS, Sexually Transmitted Infections, domestic violence, gender issues, communicable diseases such as Malaria and family planning are discussed as well as the difficulties youth face in confronting these issues and accessing health care. Training enables health workers to adapt their current facilities to be more accessible to young people and to provide both preventative services and treatment.
$3,000 – Supporting an SPW Peer Educator for an Entire Year, Uganda
Account from Buyinza Jafari, Ugandan Volunteer, Nawaikoke placement, Kamuli District
Coming from town and growing up from there, I had never been in the village to experience the life challenges and hardships of being underprivileged, so joining SPW on the Health Education Program would give me a chance to reach out to villages and save lives. I lost many of my family members to the AIDS scourge and this also prompted me to change my way of living. My educational career was built by good schools and this makes me feel like I had less to play in my career as compared to students in rural Uganda (Nawaikoke). Most of them are ignorant about life and health issues. All I was looking for was to be placed in the middle of nowhere so that I could bridge gaps, as rural areas are not easily accessed by people with the same message as us. The school health day of recent was well done. One student had to comment about the video show (‘The Silent Epidemic’- a video about STDs) “Are these things we are seeing real?” We input knowledge and ideas, teach non-formal education, help to initiate clubs and organize awareness-raising events.
I would love to continue with SPW even after placement if given a chance. My only request and prayer is that SPW expands and spreads to all of Uganda so that most parts of rural Uganda receive their message and so life shall be protected. Thanks SPW!
$5,000 - Health and Environment Youth Week, India
Report from the Peer Educators of Kammavanpettai, India
Held in the government High School, there were educational programs on adolescent health, general health and hygiene, environmental issues and waste management. Lessons were given by experienced adults while we [the volunteers] encouraged the children to continue thinking about the issues discussed through various enjoyable activities such as poster making, scavenger hunts and competitions.
There were three adolescent health lessons during the week to educate teenagers on relationship-related issues before they drop out of school and get married. This is incredibly important as such subjects are vastly neglected by parents and teachers who consider them taboo - even though human reproduction is on the biology syllabus, most teachers simply skip the chapter. The doctors and social workers were very friendly and approachable and were soon trusted by the pupils. We made question boxes so that the children could ask questions anonymously, and were gratified to see an improvement in the amount the pupils were willing to contribute to group discussions (especially the shyer girls). We then did follow-up posters with the children, with slogans such as, “Avoid multiple partners”. All the posters had Tamil translations, which we did with the help of the teachers.
On the last day all the children in the school joined in a parade through the village holding up their posters. Lots of the villagers stood outside their houses to watch, and the children even jumped up to show their posters to the passengers of a passing bus! This was a good way to spread some of the messages the children had learned and show the villagers what we had been up to for the past week! The day was a celebration of what had been achieved over the week, involving the children, lecturers, volunteers and local community. Over 3000 people attended the events in total, less than $1.50 per person.
$17,000 – Nationwide University Speaker Tour, UK
The Student Stop AIDS Campaign is a coalition of youth campaigners, who are dedicated to raising the awareness of, and campaigning for action to be taken to tackle the HIV pandemic. As part of this campaign, the annual nationwide University Speaker Tour aims to strengthen youth solidarity in tackling an epidemic that kills one young person every 15 seconds. The speaker tours give students and the public alike the opportunity to hear what it is like for young people on the front line of the epidemic, including the experience of SPW Peer Educators.
The speakers are young people who are HIV positive or HIV affected young people from Europe, the US and Africa. They hold dynamic, interactive sessions with students, compelling them to consider the HIV epidemic within a human rights framework. The presence of a young person living with HIV really gives the students a new perspective.
The tour visits at least 15 universities over an intensive two week period taking in talks with MPs and MEPs, conferences and interviews with the media along the way. Not only does the tour provide students with information and details of the pandemic, awareness of the campaign is raised and students are able to identify opportunities for them to get directly involved in making a difference.
$50,000 – Green Club Support Program, Nepal
Green Clubs are groups of active local youth leaders, formed by SPW Peer Educators during their placement periods and trained to lead SPW-style activities after Peer Educators have departed. SPW Nepal’s Green Club Support Program provides support these Clubs in the form of regular top-up training, small amounts of funding for community awareness raising activities and logistical support for large scale events.
With 115 Green Clubs established across 4 of the 5 regions of Nepal, SPW Nepal is able to reach over 12,000 young people each year with crucial health and environmental information. Green Clubs provide rural young people both in and out of school with a much needed forum for informal interaction, learning, sharing and skills development. They not only enhance young people’s knowledge, self esteem and personal development but foster a sense of purpose and social responsibility. They also act as demonstration centers for use of appropriate rural technologies, helping young people to improve their local community environments in a sustainable and effective way.
$115,000 - Comprehensive District-Wide HIV Prevention Program, Tanzania
The SPW volunteer-led program in the Southern Highlands Zone is designed around the basic principle that educated young people are ideally placed to empower less advantaged young people to overcome the obstacles to good health, particularly sexual reproductive health.
Targeting rural young people, the program attaches volunteers to rural communities where they work together with young people, teachers and community leaders to empower young people to avoid risky sexual behavior and to develop a social environment that is supportive of young people’s needs and rights
Direct volunteer-led awareness raising and empowerment activities include:
- Primary School Education: Modules of non-formal health, life-skills and environmental education, based on the Elementary School science curriculum and National School Health Program (NSHP) guidelines
- Community Seminars: Volunteers, local experts and members of community based organizations facilitate a program of seminars on community-prioritized health, environmental and social topics, including child rights and training on ARTs
- School and Community Events and Festivals: High profile awareness-raising activities, focusing the attention of the whole school or community on health issues, with a mix of performing arts, speeches and sports, regularly drawing audiences of over 1000 people.
- Youth Development Centers (YDCs): Stocked with user-friendly and appropriate IEC materials, YDCs provide students and community members with a reliable and confidential source of information and serve as a focal point for ongoing community education and development activities
- Community Action Groups (CAGs): Mobilizing the most enthusiastic and artistic young people from within the community to take an active role in their community’s development, most particularly in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
- Income Generation Projects (IGPs): Small-scale low-cost projects to enable the most vulnerable sections of the community, particularly young people, women, orphans and children heading households, to become more financially independent.
- Capacity Building for Service Providers: Ensuring that local health and education services are user-friendly and that service providers are able to contribute effectively
to the fight against HIV/AIDS. This includes workshops for teachers, community leaders and influential community members, and support for condom distributors and local health workers.
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