Abstract

The HIV prevention education in schools

R. Matos, J. Rodríguez

Organizacion StopVIH, Pampatar, Venezuela

Issues: HIV prevention education in schools is aimed at children and young people of school-going age attending public and private sector schools in Nueva Esparta State, Venezuela. The purpose of HIV prevention education is to delay the debut of sexual activity and reduce their risk of acquiring HIV infection due to lack of information and use of prevention methods in this age group.
Description: The activities were carried out from January 21st to October 30th 2009 at 14 schools belonging to 8 municipalities at the Nueva Esparta State (Venezuela), with a participation of 4500 students from 4^th, 5^th and 6^th grade of elementary school, whose ages were between 9 and 13 years old.
At the end of each discussion, there was a general review and a cycle of questions started to guarantee that the content has been understood and assimilated by the participants.
Lessons learned: This was the first phase of a long term process to lay the organization to its later monitoring and evaluation, allowing consequently, the definition of specific actions in relation to the achieved results.
The following results have been found:
- The school population in private schools has an idea of the topic, they are interested and participate in an active way.
- Students in public schools have little knowledge about the topic and they do not participate too much.
- There was no recorded background information of similar experiences in the visited schools.
Next steps:
- Promotion of leadership in schools to prevent HIV.
- Inclusion of this discussions into the annual academic school Schedule through integral educational community programs.
- Expansion of the prevention discussions on HIV aimed at all (11) the municipalities at the Nueva Esparta State.
- Extension of the prevention discussions on HIV to the level of middle/high school.
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