Sekolo Projects : Fighting HIV from the Classroom

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The Training Workshops* are now concluded.* We trained 921 teachers from 564 schools at 53 workshops in 11 regions. Click here to see the photographs.
Workshops include the specially-produced Our HIV ABC materials, written and filmed by our Founder Elizabeth Robinson and Geoffrey Silver. Each school receives the Teacher's Guide and Classroom Video, together with translations in a choice of local languages.
Click here for one teacher's comments about the classroom video.	Teacher's Guide	Classroom Video
We believe in the sustainability of training teachers in the 'combined HIV ABC' of Abstinence, Be faithful and Consistent and Correct Condom use. Our workshops discuss the limitations of the ABC, incorporate additional components on stigma, voluntary counseling, testing and care (VCTC), prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT), orphans and vulnerable children (OVC). We encourage all our teachers to get tested and to tell their colleagues and students about testing.

A	Abstinence. The only sure way of preventing HIV transmission through sexual activity. Abstinence only works if it is an informed abstinence. Encouraging delay and minimizing potential exposure are essential in fighting rising HIV rates in young people.

B	Be faithful. Fighting HIV from the classroom is about encouraging people to make informed decisions, to keep themselves safe, to use their education in a full adult life. Reducing partner numbers and knowing and trusting your partner is part of the individual's armory against infection - but B alone is no protection.

C	Consistent and Correct Condom use. Without correct condom knowledge and when placed in real life situations, young people are at risk from abuse and infection. Condom use reduces the spread of STIs whose presence greatly increases the chance of HIV transmission.

Our HIV ABC will give immediate and sustainable improvement to Namibia's HIV prevention effort through: 1) Teacher-training workshops for HIV AIDS contact teachers in all secondary schools 2) Provision of classroom tools and materials to all secondary schools, and 3) Exposing up to 30,000 students (aged 12-19) to the program The need: Preventative education is the only sustainable cure for HIV. Namibia's Medium Term Plan III (MTP3) for fighting HIV includes future plans for gearing the entire curriculum towards fighting HIV. National curricula take time to change, train teachers and provide materials. It's a problem of capacity. Sekolo's Our HIV ABC meets an immediate need for correct materials to be placed in the hands of each school's HIV AIDS contact teacher - the local, knowledgeable expert. Namibia's scattered rural population and government boarding schools gives teachers an important strategic role at the local level. Namibia has the fifth highest infection rate in the world (around 20% on average, nearer 50% in some areas). Half of all new infections are in the 15-24 age-group. Life expectancy is predicted to fall to 34 by 2010. The solution: Sekolo improves HIV prevention through teacher-training workshops and classroom materials for HIV AIDS contact teachers. A thousand teachers will be trained by cluster (similar to education districts) in groups. By training teachers by cluster, teachers are able to share ideas and network. Sekolo's work has helped some schools pool their resources, particularly around the annual World AIDS Day on December 1. The cost: $150 per teacher An inexpensive, sensitive and sustainable intervention: Our HIV ABC is a carefully crafted project that brings behavior change tools to a country with increasing awareness of its on-going HIV situation. It improves current teaching methods rather than introducing new ones and strengthens existing structures rather than imposed new foreign methods. It underpins the work of schools and strengthens the role of the HIV AIDS contact teacher at school and in the community. Our HIV ABC equips Namibia's next generation.

Copyright Sekolo Projects Inc. 2006