Teaching teenagers about AIDS prevention

“ROLL the condom down the penis model,” the facilitator says to the 15-year-old girl, who holds a large, black penis made from plastic in her hand.

“Can you all see?” he asks the rest of the group, while watching the girl completing the task. “The condom protects both partners from transmitting sexual diseases,” he says, “and also from getting infected with HIV.”The scene takes place in a Karas Government school in the afternoon and a group of teenagers – boys and girls – sits in the classroom, watching the procedure.There are no giggles or rude remarks flying around, almost all of the pupils have had some experience with HIV-AIDS, be it a relative dying from the disease, nursing an HIV-infected neighbour, a classmate losing a parent, or having witnessed sexual abuse, even rape, after grownups had a heavy drinking session at the neighbourhood shebeen.The pupils are attending an education programme developed by the Education Ministry.Next week a nationwide HIV-AIDS awareness week will take off, organised by the Ministry through its HIV-AIDS Management Unit (Hamu).Joshua Kahikuata is a Deputy Director in the Ministry of Education and the head of Hamu, which was created in 2003, but the Ministry had embarked on such programmes several years earlier.Kahikuata, with a Master’s Degree in Education from a US university, is responsible for the management, administration, personnel, budget and day-to-day running of Hamu.This includes the co-ordination of activities targeting HIV-AIDS in the education sector in all 13 regions of Namibia.Two programmes were developed: My Future is My Choice (MFMC) for youths between the ages of 15 and 18, and Window of Hope (WoH), which reaches children aged 10 to 14.My Future is my Choice deals with HIV-AIDS prevention and life skills promotion.The curriculum has ten sessions, and each is approximately two hours long.It is usually taught over five weeks, at a rate of two sessions per week.It is a very interactive and participatory curriculum, providing critical information on the human sex organs, sexually transmitted diseases and sexuality in an entertaining format, provided by master trainers who are usually about the same age of the older trainees.Once master trainers provide training to a group of about 20 facilitators, these facilitators then work in teams to teach groups of up to 25 pupils.Freedom is provided to ask “naughty” questions that adults and parents would normally not permit.MFMC was developed by the then Ministry of Basic Education and Culture and the Ministry of Youth and Sport in partnership with the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) and the University of Maryland School of Medicine.The Ministry of Health and Social Services and the National Youth Council, as well as many other Government departments and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and churches, are active partners supporting the implementation.Kahikuata co-authored the My Future is My Choice programme, which won an award from Australian authorities.The focus of the programme is to protect young people from getting infected with HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.”Young people need to be able to think for themselves and take responsibility for their future, often questions about sexuality are taboo in families,” says Kahikuata.”Young people need to be responsible for their own development.”Hamu has a website where teachers can download educational material for the two programmes should they not yet have the colourful manuals from the facilitators.The Window of Hope after-school programme is teaching 10- to 14-year-olds about HIV-AIDS prevention before they become sexually active.It aims to equip children with the self-esteem, knowledge and skills to protect themselves against HIV-AIDS and to care for others.Children learn these skills through their school subjects and they participate in an afternoon programme.WoH recognises that early adolescence – when young people are just beginning to engage in risky behaviours, but before damaging behavioural patterns have become established – provides a critical window of opportunity to deliver prevention messages and prepare young people for the challenges posed by HIV-AIDS.Is it not a bit early to tell ten-year-olds about sex? “Reaching children in primary school also makes practical sense,” says Kahikuata while recently interviewed by The Namibian.”About 95 per cent of primary-school-age children in Namibia are enrolled in school, compared with only about half of all 14- to 18-year-olds.”Launched in 2004 by the Ministry of Education with Unicef support, the Window of Hope programme can serve up to 30 children at a time and is offered once a week in each participating school.All primary schools are required to offer Window of Hope as a voluntary after-school activity.There are 1 045 Government primary schools among the 1 626 schools in the country.There is a proposal by Unicef to use former pupils who had benefited from the My Future is My Choice programmes to train trainers to reach more schools.Window of Hope was made possible through technical assistance rendered by Unicef Namibia to Hamu, with funding from the Dutch government and additional funding from USAID.The curriculum runs over a period of four years, engaging and educating children with games, stories, songs, information sharing, partner and group work, role-playing and artwork.Practical skills and information for the prevention of HIV are integrated into regular school subjects such as science, health and social studies.”In a culture where most parents never discuss sexuality with their children because it is taboo, Window of Hope is providing vital information to children who might otherwise be left in the dark,” Kahikuata notes.Due to sensitivities around HIV-AIDS and sexuality in various ethnic groups, both programmes run in the afternoons and parents have to give their written consent to let their children participate.But this is going to change, according to Kahikuata.”The programmes will form part of the school curriculum soon,” he told The Namibian.”Some schools in the Erongo region did a pilot phase and learners attended MFMF or Window of Hope during school hours instead of a music or physical training lesson.The results were very good, more children were reached as the whole classes attended instead of groups only during the afternoons and the behavioural patterns of the learners changed to less risky behaviour” According to a Unicef study of December 2006, Namibian boys on average have sex for the first time at the age of 15 and girls at 16.Only 25 per cent of the 1 000 youths between the ages 10 and 24 interviewed in the survey said their parents had discussed sexuality with them.Eighteen per cent were forced to have sex for the first time and 8,3 per cent had their first sexual encounter with someone ten or more years older than them.The study also found that young Namibians “grow up in a social environment that contains a substantive amount of anti-social behaviour, which is disturbingly high and necessitates some interventions.”The two programmes are to make more inroads at all schools in the country.Money from the Global Fund against AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis was received in June 2005 to support Hamu – a sum of approximately N$20 million over three years.Bureaucracy and red tape prolong some payouts and procurement of educational materials.Training of teachers as HIV-AIDs counsellors for pupils kicked off a year ago.By the end of last year, some 5 000 teachers – about a third of the total of approximately 18 000 teachers – were trained as counsellors.School principals were sensitised with regard to orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs) who lost a parent or both parents due to HIV-AIDS so that they are exempted from paying school fees.Ideally, at each school there should be one HIV-AIDS counselling teacher.By 2010, My Future is My Choice and Window of Hope programmes aim to reach 80 per cent of adolescents in schools and 50 per cent of out-of-school youths.The programmes aim to reduce the national HIV prevalence rate in the age group 13 to 19 from 10 per cent in 2004 to 8 per cent in three years’ time – a monumental task.Namibia’s HIV-AIDS estimated prevalence rate is just below 20 per cent (about 230 000 people) in the age groups of 15 to 49.”The condom protects both partners from transmitting sexual diseases,” he says, “and also from getting infected with HIV.”The scene takes place in a Karas Government school in the afternoon and a group of teenagers – boys and girls – sits in the classroom, watching the procedure.There are no giggles or rude remarks flying around, almost all of the pupils have had some experience with HIV-AIDS, be it a relative dying from the disease, nursing an HIV-infected neighbour, a classmate losing a parent, or having witnessed sexual abuse, even rape, after grownups had a heavy drinking session at the neighbourhood shebeen.The pupils are attending an education programme developed by the Education Ministry.Next week a nationwide HIV-AIDS awareness week will take off, organised by the Ministry through its HIV-AIDS Management Unit (Hamu).Joshua Kahikuata is a Deputy Director in the Ministry of Education and the head of Hamu, which was created in 2003, but the Ministry had embarked on such programmes several years earlier.Kahikuata, with a Master’s Degree in Education from a US university, is responsible for the management, administration, personnel, budget and day-to-day running of Hamu.This includes the co-ordination of activities targeting HIV-AIDS in the education sector in all 13 regions of Namibia.Two programmes were developed: My Future is My Choice (MFMC) for youths between the ages of 15 and 18, and Window of Hope (WoH), which reaches children aged 10 to 14.My Future is my Choice deals with HIV-AIDS prevention and life skills promotion.The curriculum has ten sessions, and each is approximately two hours long.It is usually taught over five weeks, at a rate of two sessions per week.It is a very interactive and participatory curriculum, providing critical information on the human sex organs, sexually transmitted diseases and sexuality in an entertaining format, provided by master trainers who are usually about the same age of the older trainees.Once master trainers provide training to a group of about 20 facilitators, these facilitators then work in teams to teach groups of up to 25 pupils.Freedom is provided to ask “naughty” questions that adults and parents would normally not permit.MFMC was developed by the then Ministry of Basic Education and Culture and the Ministry of Youth and Sport in partnership with the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) and the University of Maryland School of Medicine.The Ministry of Health and Social Services and the National Youth Council, as well as many other Government departments and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and churches, are active partners supporting the implementation.Kahikuata co-authored the My Future is My Choice programme, which won an award from Australian authorities.The focus of the programme is to protect young people from getting infected with HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.”Young people need to be able to think for themselves and take responsibility for their future, often questions about sexuality are taboo in families,” says Kahikuata.”Young people need to be responsible for their own development.”Hamu has a website where teachers can download educational material for the two programmes should they not yet have the colourful manuals from the facilitators.The Window of Hope after-school programme is teaching 10- to 14-year-olds about HIV-AIDS prevention before they become sexually active.It aims to equip children with the self-esteem, knowledge and skills to protect themselves against HIV-AIDS and to care for others.Children learn these skills through their school subjects and they participate in an afternoon programme.WoH recognises that early adolescence – when young people are just beginning to engage in risky behaviours, but before damaging behavioural patterns have become established – provides a critical window of opportunity to deliver prevention messages and prepare young people for the challenges posed by HIV-AIDS.Is it not a bit early to tell ten-year-olds about sex? “Reaching children in primary school also makes practical sense,” says Kahikuata while recently interviewed by The Namibian.”About 95 per cent of primary-school-age children in Namibia are enrolled in school, compared with only about half of all 14- to 18-year-olds.”Launched in 2004 by the Ministry of Education with Unicef support, the Window of Hope programme can serve up to 30 children at a time and is offered once a week in each participating school.All primary schools are required to offer Window of Hope as a voluntary after-school activity.There are 1 045 Government primary schools among the 1 626 schools in the country.There is a proposal by Unicef to use former pupils who had benefited from the My Future is My Choice programmes to train trainers to reach more schools.Window of Hope was made possible through technical assistance rendered by Unicef Namibia to Hamu, with funding from the Dutch government and additional funding from USAID.The curriculum runs over a period of four years, engaging and educating children with games, stories, songs, information sharing, partner and group work, role-playing and artwork.Practical skills and information for the prevention of HIV are integrated into regular school subjects such as science, health and social studies.”In a culture where most parents never discuss sexuality with their children because it is taboo, Window of Hope is providing vital information to children who might otherwise be left in the dark,” Kahikuata notes.Due to sensitivities around HIV-AIDS and sexuality in various ethnic groups, both programmes run in the afternoons and parents have to give their written consent to let their children participate.But this is going to change, according to Kahikuata.”The programmes will form part of the school curriculum soon,” he told The Namibian.”Some schools in the Erongo region did a pilot phase and learners attended MFMF or Window of Hope during school hours instead of a music or physical training lesson.The results were very good, more children were reached as the whole classes attended instead of groups only during the afternoons and the behavioural patterns of the learners changed to less risky behaviour” According to a Unicef study of December 2006, Namibian boys on average have sex for the first time at the age of 15 and girls at 16.Only 25 per cent of the 1 000 youths between the ages 10 and 24 interviewed in the survey said their parents had discussed sexuality with them.Eighteen per cent were forced to have sex for the first time and 8,3 per cent had their first sexual encounter with someone ten or more years older than them.The study also found that young Namibians “grow up in a social environment that contains a substantive amount of anti-social behaviour, which is disturbingly high and necessitates some interventions.”The two programmes are to make more inroads at all schools in the country.Money from the Global Fund against AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis was received in June 2005 to support Hamu – a sum of approximately N$20 million over three years.Bureaucracy and red tape prolong some payouts and procurement of educational materials.Training of teachers as HIV-AIDs counsellors for pupils kicked off a year ago.By the end of last year, some 5 000 teachers – about a third of the total of approximately 18 000 teachers – were trained as counsellors.School principals were sensitised with regard to orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs) who lost a parent or both parents due to HIV-AIDS so that they are exempted from paying school fees.Ideally, at each school there should be one HIV-AIDS counselling teacher.By 2010, My Future is My Choice and Window of Hope programmes aim to reach 80 per cent of adolescents in schools and 50 per cent of out-of-school youths.The programmes aim to reduce the national HIV prevalence rate in the age group 13 to 19 from 10 per cent in 2004 to 8 per cent in three years’ time – a monumental task.Namibia’s HIV-AIDS estimated prevalence rate is just below 20 per cent (about 230 000 people) in the age groups of 15 to 49.