MELBOURNE MONDAY 21 JULY, 2014
Youth led HIV & sexual health peer education: It’s smart; it’s simple; it’s sustainable; it’s cost effective and it’s being championed by an Australian NGO.
Youth Empowerment Against HIV AIDS (YEAH) Australia’s only youth led national HIV and sexual health NGO has spent the past five years developing and refining its program to engage young Australians as peer educators.
Funded by the Commonwealth Government, The Agents of YEAH HIV and Sexual Health Peer Education program engages tens of thousands of young Australians each year through trained voluntary teams in Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, Darwin and Perth.
The program offers young Australians aged 15-29 the opportunity to develop the knowledge to learn about comprehensive sexual health education and the tools and skills to effectively share that knowledge with their peers.
In 2014, graduates from YEAH’s peer education program have delivered free HIV and sexual health workshops and information stalls at schools, universities and other youth events around the country reaching over 100,000 young Australians.
Building on the success of YEAH’s national peer education program, UNESCO – World leaders in best practice comprehensive sexuality education – have supported the development of an online platform to encourage free sharing of youth HIV and sexual health peer education resources amongst those working in similar programs around the world.
The cutting edge open source Peer Education Hub will be launched at the Australian Centre for Moving Image (ACMI) at 6:30pm today, Monday 21st July to coincide with Australia hosting the 20th International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2014).
The launch event will be facilitated by health expert Dr Norman Swan and will feature a panel of special guests including: Dr Luiz Loures, Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and Deputy Executive Director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and, Christopher Castle, Chief Section of Health and Global Citizenship Education UNESCO Global Coordinator for HIV and AIDS and Laura John, Australian Youth Representative to the United Nations.
Alischa Ross, CEO of YEAH says, “The opportunity to maximize our reach through the Peer Education Hub and educate young people who are willing to volunteer to learn about sexual health is not only part of reaching the target group its about creating a sustainable level of knowledge amongst younger generations.”
“At a time when we have epidemic rates of sexually transmitted infections occurring amongst young Australians I can also say we also have young people lining up on waiting lists wanting to be trained to become sexual health peer educators. We just need to find the resources to get them all involved and the launch of the hub takes us one step closer,” says Ross.
“Education is the cornerstone of prevention and knowledge lets you make informed choices. Finding the resources to support more young volunteers to become HIV and sexual health educators is an incredibly cost effective option for Australia given the evidence of how effective these kinds of programs are.”
As part of making sure local youth also benefit from Australia’s role in hosting AIDS 2014, YEAH’s peer educators will be hosting free daily peer education sessions for Victorian Schools as part of the Connecting Schools Program.
Following the launch of the Peer Education Hub, ACMI will play host to a freely accessible public space dedicated to HIV and sexual health peer education where the public can come and interact with the newly launched online platform.
All guest speakers are available for interview at the Peer Education Hub Launch on Monday 21st July.
All media enquiries please contact: KAREN COCHRANE – 0467 855 533
Media wishing to attend the launch event should contact: Alex@yeah.org.au
View the Invitation.