Training of Trainers, August 2007
In 2007 Youth Incentives started a two year Trainer of Trainers (TOT) Programme for peer educators HIV/AIDS prevention volunteering for the Doses of Hope Foundation (DOH) in Somaliland. DOH is a non-governmental organisation based in the Netherlands and Somaliland and it is funded by Oxfam Novib.
DOH has initiated two small pilot projects on HIV/AIDS and decided to set up this TOT to train low income, high risk women and men as peer educators in HIV/AIDS prevention through the establishment of Kulan Clubs. These are community clubs; Kulan is Somali for gathering.
In mixed groups participants will have two trainings of five consecutive days each. After having succeeded both trainings the participants will train 288 Kulan Club Members over a period of two years (144 people annually). The Kulan Club Members will eventually target the communities in Hargeisa and Galibey, reaching indirectly 25.000 people through schools, media, brochures, posters etcetera.
In August 2007 the first training was delivered in Somaliland’s capital Hargeisa. Fifteen women and eighteen men gained basic knowledge, communication and training skills on sexual reproductive health & rights, sexuality, STI, HIV, AIDS, gender, stigma and discrimination. They were trained in communication these matters within peer trainings. In three months they will be trained in methodologies of peer education on these and other relevant issues. In 2008 the training will be repeated in Galibey.
The training methodology inspired several participants for their peer training tasks in the future. It showed them a pleasant and careful way to stimulate discussions on sexual reproductive health and related issues in peer groups. So far the training has proven to be very effective in making the participants talk about sexual reproductive health of young people, sexuality, HIV-transmission and FGM. This has been a major achievement working with a mixed group of men and women who were not used to communicate on these amongst each other due to the Islamic religion and culture of Somaliland.
Silence has been broken on HIV/AIDS, 2002
In 2002, Youth Incentives developed an HIV/AIDS youth prevention programme in cooperation with local partner HAVOYOCO. This programme was funded by NOVIB, a Dutch development aid organisation. Both long-term and short-term goals were developed on the basis of an analysis of the incidence of HIV/AIDS in Somaliland. The analysis showed that the population is at risk from HIV/AIDS and that improvements can be made in fields such as healthcare, training, blood testing and level of information. The programme started with the training of trainers to raise awareness. This was followed up with workshops, debates and a circus show highlighting HIV/AIDS prevention that was attended by 20,000 spectators. Silence on the sensitive subject of HIV/AIDS has been broken and the project is continuing in order to reduce discrimination and break taboos.
