Why is Peer Education important?
The real attitudinal and behavioural changes that are necessary for communities to effectively combat poverty, HIV and AIDS cannot be enacted by outsiders. Peer education means that community members who are already inspired to fight HIV and AIDS receive the training and support they need in order to mobilise their communities.

Young people in Zambian society are often not empowered to have a say in decisions that affect them or to have their opinions and questions respected. Peer education offers a platform for open discussion and idea generation that is healthy and adaptive for the Zambian youth. Accurate information on HIV and AIDS is often lacking amongst rural communities and peer education gives the opportunity to spread educational messages that are essential for the survival of the next generation.

What does SAPEP do?
SAPEP AIDS Action Clubs (AACs) are run by their members, who are also SAPEP’s primary beneficiaries, and represent the community’s own answer to poverty, HIV and AIDS. An AAC committee consists of four or five members who have been elected by their peers. A club usually has around 30 members the majority between the ages of 15 and 35 years old - the age group worst hit by HIV and AIDS. Committee members are responsible for organising different activities each week for their peers in order to educate them about HIV and AIDS as well as making plans, as a group, for the club’s future. The AACs are supported by a peer educator who is a member of SAPEP’s project staff and coordinates the activities in the zone.

As the activities are organised by the members and peer-led, the activities are pitched at the appropriate level and young people feel able to interact more freely, exploring issues that they may not feel comfortable discussing with elders.

Typical activities include debates, dramas, games, sports events, songs and poetry.

Our peer educators participate in “training of trainers” (TOT) workshops in a number of areas such as peer education methods, gender inequality, cultural factors affecting HIV and AIDS, and basic counselling.

It is then the peer educators’ task to pass on this knowledge and skill to the AACs in order to facilitate them in their mission to mobilise their own rural communities against poverty, HIV and AIDS.

Peer education really comes into action at outreach events. There are a number of Zambian national holidays (e.g. National Youth Day, National Women’s Day) when events are held and the AACs have the chance to reach out to their fellow community members. SAPEP offers to join relevant event management committees so as to ensure that HIV and AIDS prevention is a message that is incorporated into the festivities. This gives AACs the chance to perform dramas, poetry and songs or to conduct debates, all with an HIV and AIDS prevention theme.

Inter-club competitions, when clubs within a zone meet to compete against each other, offer another chance to reach the wider community. The community comes to watch, and vote on, the best dramas, songs and poetry performed by the clubs. The winning club receives seed money from SAPEP in order to launch a new income-generating initiative.

What are the results?
Advantages for the AAC members include:

» Access to accurate information on HIV and AIDS

» The chance to speak freely and openly on topics related to HIV and AIDS

» Opportunities to engage in creative and sporting activities

The effects stretch beyond the AAC members themselves. The AACs engage the wider community, battling stigma, encouraging safer sexual behaviour and mobilising their peers to do the same.

What are the plans for the future?
The more effectively we train our project staff – the peer educator – the more effectively the AIDS Action message filters down to the wider community. Therefore, SAPEP’s priority is to widen the training programme of the peer educators.

None of our plans can be fulfilled without your support, so please donate online.