UNICEF trains youths on AIDS prevention

First-of-its-kind workshop jointly organised by UNICEF and State Health Dept in Sokhda, where 4,000 PEs interacted through street plays and puppet shows

UNICEF and State health department have been successful in training 14,048 unemployed youths in three districts - Vadodara, Surat and Valsad under the UNICEF (2006-2007) project on 'HIV prevention amongst young people and children', said UNICEF officials.

Youths will be acting as Peer Educators (PE) for people of their age in rural areas and help in shedding myths prevalent amongst adolescents about HIV/AIDS.
Now, UNICEF intends to organise workshop for interaction between PEs from various district.

Recently, a first-of-its-kind workshop in the State was jointly organised by UNICEF and State health department at Sokhda village (20 kms from Vadodara) where 4,000 PEs interacted through the use of different modes of communication-- street plays and puppet shows.

UNICEF intends to organise a similar workshops in other two districts (Valsad and Surat) as well, said Dr K N Patel, UNICEF's state consultant of HIV/ AIDS.

Similar project was conducted in West Bengal and Rs 5 crore budget was given to the state for the project, he said.

In the project, PEs conducted a survey in HIV/AIDS awareness in the state that evidenced that HIV/ AIDS is transmitted through sexual route mostly by adolescent belonging to 14-25 years age category, said Dr Patel.

"Even National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) survey supports our study,'' he added.

Dr Bhagwat Itare, Chief District Health Officer (CDHO) said rural unemployed youth between 14 to 25 years of age were given two days training on selecting modes of communication in bring HIV/ AIDS awareness.

Pitching in more information Dr Patel said that presently UNICEF does not have any further plans of beginning training in other districts.

Dr P L Ode, district project coordinator for UNICEF in HIV/ AIDS program, said there were three NG- - Shroff foundation, Deepak Charitable Trust and Centre for Rural ca-e - involved in educating rural youth and have reached the target of educating 8,004 of them within a year.