| A national conference of youths set for next month is expected to be the venue to chart the way forward as it relates to helping young individuals get on board the fight against the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV).At least this is according to Programme Manager of the National AIDS Programme Secretariat, Dr Shanti Singh, who during an interview with this publication anticipated that a sizeable proportion of the country’s youths will be reached at the planned forum.She disclosed that the conference is designed to put plans in place for the next three to four years in terms of how HIV awareness work is done, both with in-school as well as out-of-school youths.NAPS Programme Manager,Nike NFL Jerseys China, Dr Shanti SinghThis move comes as NAPS engages the Ministry of Education, through its Health and Family Life Education programme,NFL Jerseys Supply, as well as other school-based programmes to raise awareness about the epidemic.Ideally the collaboration with the Education Ministry should be funnelled through the Health Ministry’s Adolescent Health Unit, which according to the NAPS Programme Director, is currently not operating very efficiently.“So from our standpoint ,while the Adolescent Health Unit may not be as vibrant as it should be, we have actually made a decision internally, within the Secretariat, in order to step up in terms of working with in-school youths, and as a matter of fact that will commence in a very structured way on September 2 at the conference,” Dr Singh disclosed.However, NAPS has undertaken to raise awareness,Cheap Jerseys Store, though on a small scale, among work study students attached to the Secretariat. This has seen the Secretariat creating a small database of all these students, which Dr Singh said, “allows us to keep following them…Some of them are in University and many of them even return to do charitable work with us.”Added to this, she said that NAPS is in possession of an even wider database of all out-of-school youths who were trained as peer educators.Those listed in the databases will be among the youths who will be invited to attend the conference, Dr Singh said. This, she said, will cater to the creation of a network of all the youths, so that health becomes a priority for them.Moreover, she said that the conference will certainly not only focus on HIV, but on general health including Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI), teenage pregnancy and substance abuse. She also pointed out that there is need to take into consideration all social issues affecting youths that could put them at risk.And targeting the young population is rather a crucial move for NAPS,Cheap NHL Jerseys Authentic, as according to Dr Singh, “there is a very strong recognition that the young population is at an increased risk…so we made a decision that we needed to accelerate some of the efforts that we have started.”In fact, according to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), young people remain at the centre of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in terms of rates of infection, vulnerability, impact, and potential for change. This is due to the fact,China Jerseys Cheap, UNFPA underscores, that although they have grown up in a world changed by AIDS,China NFL Jerseys, many of these young people still lack comprehensive and correct knowledge about how to prevent HIV infection.“This situation persists even though the world has agreed that young people have the human right to education, information and services that could protect them from harm,” UNFPA highlights.As such, the body has been advocating for youths to be at the centre of preventative actions.“Where they are well informed of HIV risks and prevention strategies, they are changing their behaviour in ways that reduces their vulnerability. For example, in several countries, education has led to delayed sexual debut and increased use of condoms resulting in a decrease in HIV prevalence in young people,” according to UNFPA.It has however been deduced by the UN body that despite the increase of HIV knowledge among youths the efforts, to some extent, remain inadequate.And NAPS has not been limiting its efforts to merely the enlightening of youths, but teachers are also being targeted.“We have done some work with teachers, but we haven’t done as much as we should,” said Dr Singh, who divulged that “…there were some efforts in terms of having modules integrated in some of the pre-service curriculum, even at the level of the Cyril Potter College of Education. We see this as another area that we will have to look more closely at to help safeguard our youths,” said Dr Singh. |
