Following the successful roll out of the New Generation (NewGen) Asia Leadership Short Course in multiple countries in the Asia-Pacific region, UNESCO Bangkok hosted a ‘writers workshop’ to review the course curriculum, in collaboration with Youth LEAD and the Youth Research Centre of the University of Melbourne. The workshop, which took place from 29 June to 2 July 2013, was held with financial and technical support from UNICEF, UNFPA, and UNAIDS.
The NewGen five day course was especially designed to be led by young people to enhance the leadership skills and the capacity of young people from key populations at higher exposure of HIV (including young men who have sex with men, young transgender people, young people using drugs, young people selling sex, and young people living with HIV). The curriculum was developed in 2011 over an 11-month consultation, writing and piloting process led by Youth LEAD in partnership with Associate Professor Helen Cahill, an expert in health education and participatory curriculum design from The University of Melbourne, Australia, along with UN partners UNAIDS, UNFPA, UNESCO and UNICEF.
The training curriculum includes information on HIV, young key populations, and has a special focus on skills-based training including advocacy, use of data, communication, and leadership.
In September 2012, thirty young people from key populations from five countries, namely Indonesia (including Papua province), Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore and Sri Lanka attended a Training of Trainers (ToT) for the NewGen course at UNESCO Bangkok. Since then, Youth LEAD has supported national country rollouts in Indonesia, Myanmar and the Philippines at the end of 2012.
The rapid roll out of this course at country-level meant it was time to bring key people together to gather information about their experiences so far. Mehrdad Pourzakikhani, Monitoring and Evaluations Officer at Youth LEAD, said “it seemed like a good time to compile data, look at the feedback and lessons learnt, and consolidate a new and updated version of the course”.
“As the lead author of the materials, it is essential to gather feedback about how the materials are received by participants and any challenges that facilitators have delivering the course. This means we can work with them to make necessary changes, and provide further training support to facilitators” said Associate Professor Helen Cahill from the University of Melbourne.
Co-author Sally Beadle from the University of Melbourne, pointed out that “one of the most important things to come out of the writers workshop is the need to provide more information and activities on basic Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) and HIV. Initially it was seen as important to focus mainly on leadership skills, but it has become clear that many of the participants who have been involved in national rollouts do not have essential background knowledge”. New activities will therefore be incorporated into the course to provide basic information and also skills-building in negotiation and problem-solving to help people practice skills that they can apply in all aspects of their life.
In addition to the integration of SRH and HIV information and activities, Thaw Zin Aye, coordinator of Youth LEAD said “sections addressing strategic information and using data will also be incorporated to assist young people to create stronger advocacy messages”.
After three days of discussing areas of integration, how to strengthen existing course curricula, and reviewing participatory activities, the next steps for NewGen will be to test the revised curriculum at a second ToT to be held in Bangkok late September 2013. TOT participants will be invited from 5 countries (Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, China, India, and Nepal) which will allow for the expansion of NewGen into these countries in late 2013 and early 2014.
It is an exciting time to be involved in NewGen and the revision of the curriculum as the course is a great example of how large-scale regional initiatives can have an impact at the grassroots level. As Mehrdad shared “listening to the stories shared, it was evident that NewGen works. There is now a legitimate need to capture these stories of growth and accomplishment in order to showcase the strength of NewGen, the transforming power of leadership, and the potential of young people”.
Associate Professor Helen Cahill and Sally Beadle from the University of Melbourne also expressed their excitement about working with Youth LEAD to refresh and strengthen the course in the coming months. To accompany this, there is also a forthcoming research report documenting the process and lessons learned so far, which is anticipated to be released around the time of the ToT in September.
For more information about NewGen or the upcoming ToT, contact Thaw Zin Aye, Youth LEAD coordinator by email at thaw@youth-lead.org or visit Youth LEAD website at http://www.youth-lead.org/.
For related articles please see:
NewGen Asia, Working with the next generation of leaders in the HIV response in the Philippines
Youth-led training builds leadership skills among young people affected by the AIDS epidemic
NewGen in Myanmar: Leadership Short Course for Young Key Affected Populations, 19-23 November 2012, Myanmar
*Youth LEAD is a regional network of young key affected populations in the Asia-Pacific region. Initiated in 2010 in response to an identified lack of young key affected populations’ involvement in advocacy, the network currently has 50 members in 17 countries. Youth LEAD is a key partner with the Asia-Pacific Interagency Task Team on Young Key Populations.