Preventing HIV Infection
Preventing HIV in Young People
- Why Focus on Young People?
- What Have We Learned So Far?
- What Should Be Our Guiding Principles?
- What Can UNFPA Do to Prevent the Next Young Person From Becoming HIV Infected?
- Notes and References
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What Can UNFPA Do to Prevent the Next Young Person From Becoming HIV Infected?
UNFPA’s actions to prevent HIV infection in young people should build on and expand programmes that promote healthy adolescent development and seek to ensure safer and responsible sexual lifestyles.
The three broad actions outlined below work in a complimentary and reinforcing manner, each providing a means or foundation for the other to be more effective.
1. Create a supportive and enabling environment for programming for HIV prevention
- An important role for UNFPA is to support the
(1) collection of gender-specific health and
demographic data on young people (10 to 24 years)
(e.g. as part of demographic health surveys) and (2)
design, implementation and analyses of qualitative
sexual behaviour studies. The results of which can be
used to provide evidence-based information needed
to:
- sensitize policy makers, communities and significant gate-keepers on issues related to sexual health, HIV and young people;
- ensure national policies recognize and appropriately address the epidemic among young people;
- develop situation specific preventive and behavioural change messages;
- advocate for up-scaling of successful sexual and reproductive health and rights programmes for young people. - Recognizing that in many parts of the world the provision of sexual and reproductive health education and services for young people is still viewed with skepticism, concern and fear, UNFPA should support advocacy and awareness creation activities that promote dialogue and partnerships between young people, parents, community and religious leaders, and policy makers that can result in youth-friendly, gender-responsive policies and programmes which build on positive social norms and encourage open and frank discussion of young people’s concerns and needs.
2. Strengthen HIV/AIDS and sexual and reproductive health education programmes for young people both in and out-of-school
- Integrating HIV/AIDS into population/family-life/ sexual health education is important to ensure young people’s long-term preparedness providing a foundation for responsible choices about their reproductive health and their lives. UNFPA should continue to assist HIV/AIDS education programmes through support for development of: 1) policies and programmes that strengthen the capacity of relevant segments within the education sector to provide dynamic HIV/AIDS prevention activities; 2) HIV/ AIDS content, which challenges young people to think and personalize options and to make informed choices, into mainstream educational curricula, extracurricula activities and non-formal vocational programmes; and 3) pre- and in-service teachers training packages on HIV/AIDS and life skills education.
- School-based and out-of-school life skills education should promote positive attitudes and skills including self-esteem, negotiation, coping, critical thinking, decision-making, communication and assertiveness skills. Additional support should be provided to strengthen parent education programmes that include parent-child communication skills. Particularly for out-of-school youth and youth in especially difficult circumstances, support should be provided for initiatives that serve to empower young people (e.g. girls and boys empowerment initiatives) and that link reproductive health and HIV prevention with other specialized and social services, livelihood opportunities, skills building and vocational training.
- To complement HIV/AIDS education programmes, UNFPA should support multi-level and multi-media communication efforts that encourage positive and healthy lifestyles, good social norms and safer sexual options. The development, production and dissemination of behaviour change communication (BCC) materials and messages should be mindful of the heterogeneity of young people; sensitive to age, culture and gender factors; and as much as possible, should be based on audience segmentation and audience research to allow messages to be more relevantly tailored to specific attitudes, practices and needs. The process should allow for young people to actively participate, and explore innovative entertaining and popular ways of reaching young people with information and educational messages such as radio, television, drama, folk theatre and other traditional media, comic strips and youth magazines, videos, interactive computer games, internet, telephone hotlines/helplines, music and dynamic talk shows.
- Positive role models including celebrities and peers are extremely useful in developing self-esteem. They can inspire, encourage and motivate young people to see the future with more confidence, to develop their own aspirations to the same heights as their role models, and to make the right decisions and choices in relation to sexual activity and lifestyle. UNFPA should expand its support to peer education programmes for in school and out-of-school youth were young people serve as role models and the carriers of positive and culturally relevant messages.
3. Incorporate HIV prevention strategies into "youth-friendly" sexual and reproductive health services
- Awareness creation and preventive education need to
be complemented with institutional services
especially for young people who are already sexually
active, are in difficult circumstances, or who are
susceptible to engaging in substance abuse
(particularly drug injecting). To this end, UNFPA
should advocate and support the introduction and/
or expansion of youth-friendly sexual and
reproductive health services including those that
integrate:
- sexual and reproductive health and HIV/AIDS information, education and counseling;
- the diagnosis and management of STIs;
- confidential and voluntary HIV counseling, testing and support 3; and
- access to male and female condoms including information and education to ensure proper and consistent use4. Efforts should be made to ensure access by young people through a range of service delivery settings including multi-purpose youth centers, youth corners, public and private health clinics, hotlines/ helplines, outreach/mobile services and school based clinics.
- Where resources are limited, UNFPA should prioritize its support to preventing HIV infections amongst young people most vulnerable while advocating with partners for additional resources to address young people in general. This may include support for HIV prevention initiatives in settings such as the work place for young migrant youth workers, the street for street children and in camps for refugee or internally displaced youth.
- UNFPA should collaborate with other relevant partners and UN agencies to ensure effective linkages and referrals exist for specialized services that address specific needs such as harm reduction programmes for drug addiction (UNDCP) and access to treatment and support programmes for HIV positive young people (WHO, UNICEF).
- In support to this, UNFPA will need to assist governments to train programme managers and service providers from a broad spectrum of youth and youth serving organizations and related sectors particularly health, education and youth. Training will need to ensure knowledge and skills to effectively integrate HIV prevention activities in on-going sexual and reproductive health programmes for young people. In addition, capacity building activities will need to address and clarify service provider’s and educator’s values and attitudes which many times serve as barriers to access of services and information by young people.
- Many international and national organizations, UN system agencies, foundations and donors are actively providing assistance to governments and NGOs to address the HIV/AIDS epidemic among young people. UNFPA together with its UN partners would benefit most if it collaborates with youth and their organizations to respond to the needs of young people.
