Community information services
for young people
Background Constanta city has about 10 organizations active in HIV
area. As in 2005-2006 most of them were carrying out
informative activities in schools and their programs
were sometimes overlapping, they have gradually begun
withdrawing since 2 years ago. In 2008, only 1 organization
had funds and trained volunteers to unfold such activities.
As the unfolded programs were not sustainable, school
representatives took the initiative to invite NGOs for
specific activities. In these circumstances, BBSF initiated a
few information projects involving mixed team of student
volunteers and teachers, ensuring thus program continuity
despite the lack of financers.
Objectives This presentation will prove the efficiency of involving peer
educators as well as adults in the informative activities for
the community (high-school students), as BBSF’s experience
showed so far.
Design/ methods BBSF organized meetings for creating a coherent
program targeting high-school students, meant to provide
information about HIV/AIDS and consultation for
elaboration of a proposal respecting the objectives of the
community services department; also, BBSF expressed
availability in terms of providing informative materials
for students and endorsed the idea of mixed teams of
peer educators and teachers. Thus, an expanded team to
run a program in cities and less accessible rural areas was
mobilized, trained and asked to report the information
activities within terms and conditions set out by BBSF.
Baylor Romania utilized the following methods for the
informative services in community:
• Presentation sessions;
• Debate sessions;
• Work groups;
• Video support;
• Elaboration of posters;
• Elaboration of prevention messages;
• Questionnaires.
Results The specific of the target group age (14-18 years old) is
detached approach of problems that adults deem important.
The solution identified by us was to actively involve them
in the organization and unfolding of the information/
education sessions. Task assignment and monitoring by
the team of volunteers make them responsible about the
content and impact of the activities as their reputation is at
stake as well.
Conclusions Diversifying the community information methods helps
us improve message delivery technique and improve the
impact of the organized sessions at personal level. As
education is a continuous process, it requires permanent
improvement. The presentation will show to every member
of the network the advantages and disadvantages of various
methods tested by BBSF on various categories of target
groups and enable them to make right choices when making
various interventions in their community.
Authors:
A. M. Schweitzer
S. Mihale
M. Mocanu