Project helps boost awareness of HIV/AIDS

Samah Riyadh, 20, has been educating people about HIV/AIDS and ways to prevent it since 2005.

"In the beginning, people had very limited knowledge about HIV/AIDS, and dealt with this issue insensitively...People are now beginning to understand what HIV/AIDS is and how it is transmitted," she said.

Samah was among hundreds of young people who received UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) life skills training in the southern province of Aden. The
young people learnt about such things as HIV transmission, prevention, care and protection; the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS; and educational messages. The focus was to help communities address stigma, denial and discrimination.

According to UNAIDS, the rate of HIV among people aged 15-49 in Yemen is 0.2 percent.

Awareness-raising

Speaking about the project, Nasim Ur-Rehman, a UNICEF communication officer, told IRIN/PlusNews: "It started as a small initiative led by a few people, but has now blossomed into a truly national effort, bringing about lots of national debate and openness on the issue."

He said the relatively low number of reported HIV/AIDS cases could lead to complacency about the risks of the disease spreading in future, and that further awareness-raising actions were essential.

According to the UN Development Programme (UNDP) office in Yemen, 45.9 percent of Yemen's 21 million people are aged under 15. Yemen is also one of the countries with a gradually growing number of HIV infections and at least some high-risk groups have been identified.

UNICEF's awareness-raising programme has also covered the governorates of Sanaa, Taiz, and al-Hudeidah. It started in 2005 in Aden, targeting a number of secondary schools. It is now targeting youth in marginalised communities, including refugees.

Marginalised groups

Mulhem Saif, a consultant for the programme, said there were 44,788 "peer educators" in the targeted areas, and that the focus now was increasingly on marginalised groups. Over 15,000 marginalised people have been educated in the governorate of Aden alone, he said.

"Peer educators began targeting military camps in Aden. In the first three months of 2008, over 6,000 people there were educated by young volunteers," he told IRIN/PlusNews, adding that the volunteers had also targeted juveniles in social care centres, prisons and orphanages.

In April 2005 UNICEF helped conduct a survey in four vulnerable neighbourhoods in Aden where some 200,000 people live. It found that only 28 percent had a good knowledge of HIV transmission and prevention. The study's results were used as the basis for planning and implementing the peer education project.

On 15 April UNICEF concluded a three-day national peer education workshop in the capital, Sanaa, bringing together over 120 young people from six governorates, representing school students and out-of-school adolescents.

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