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9 Participatory HIV Intervention with Ghanaian Youth Kwardua Vanderpuye and Janet Amegatcher In January 2002 a participatory HIV/AIDS prevention campaign was conducted in Accra, Ghana, which reached more than nine hundred youth aged twelve to twenty-three. This low-cost pilot project assessed the youth’s awareness and needs concerning HIV/AIDS and engaged them in locally based peer-led efforts to control HIV/AIDS in their community. The intervention employed the framework of critical pedagogy to engage the youth in defining their needs. In addition to distribution of condoms and anonymous counseling and testing, self-selected peer educators were used to reinforce prevention messages. When her family could no longer afford to keep Abena in the primary school near their village in northern Ghana, they sent her to stay with relatives in Accra. She wound up fending for herself, hawking drinking water on the roadside and sleeping outdoors. Men often propositioned her; and when it rained or she became cold, she went to their homes, exchanging sexual favors for a warm bed, a few cedis, and a meal. Although 149 You are reading copyrighted material published by Ohio University Press/Swallow Press. Unauthorized posting, copying, or distributing of this work except as permitted under U.S. copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. Abena has managed to cope with her desperate circumstances alone, since attending the participatory youth workshop she has asked for help in finding out if she is HIV positive. Adwoa, another Ghanaian, was recently orphaned and lives with an uncle who is raising ten children of his own. Crowded in a one-bedroom flat, she stoically resists sexual advances from her male cousins and their friends. While Adwoa’s mother raised her to be a good Christian and avoid sex until marriage, she does not know how to respond to these overtures or the scorn of her sexually active companions. By participating in the HIV/ AIDS youth workshop, Adwoa strengthened her resolve to abstain from sex and choose her marriage partner wisely. She has been sharing the HIV-prevention messages she learned with her cousins and friends. Korkor may be considered one of the more fortunate ones; her middle-class parents could afford to keep her in school. Even after Korkor became pregnant in the first year of junior secondary school, her parents took care of the child so Korkor could continue her education. Two years later, at age sixteen, she is pregnant again. This time her parents decided that Korkor must shoulder her responsibilities. Instead of completing her final year, she will attend vocational school to study dressmaking so she can support her children. On discovering at the youth workshop the risk of transmitting HIV during pregnancy, and dismayed by the limits of available treatment, she summoned the courage to ask about her HIV status at the next clinic visit. Although relieved to find out she was HIV negative, she still has not discussed condom use with her new boyfriend. Perhaps some day soon she will muster courage to do so. The above are stories of young people affiliated with the International Youth Shelter Foundation–Ghana (IYSFG), a 150 / The Children of Africa Confront AIDS You are reading copyrighted material published by Ohio University Press/Swallow Press. Unauthorized posting, copying, or distributing of this work except as permitted under U.S. copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. voluntary nonprofit organization that sponsored an HIVprevention campaign in January 2002. The two hundred young people in attendance at the World Miracle Church’s youth service were the lucky few outside the school system who participated in the HIV risk-reduction workshop. Established in 1997 to improve the quality of life for youth from deprived communities , IYSFG provides refuge and resources for women and young girls at risk for abuse or abandonment. The HIVprevention workshops were also conducted in six junior secondary schools (JSS) reaching over nine hundred youths between twelve and twenty-three years old, the fastest-growing cohort of the HIV-infected population. These young people and millions of their peers outside the school system are the key to turning the tide of the AIDS epidemic in Ghana. The Youth Campaign The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that in countries where 15 percent of adults are infected with the virus, no less than one-third of all fifteen-year-olds will die of AIDS. Even though Ghana is not among the most afflicted African...

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