Our program is the adolescent education program
It is part of a greater whole
NYC Dept of Health AIDS Institute
Peer education project
We have a group of young people that we train in the summer to be peer educator
AIDS, STDs, birth control
A part of that involves us going into the schools
We're one fo the few organization that allows us to go into the schools
Each school is supposed to have a HIV team leader, but they aren't trained in HIV
Even when other organizations go into the schools, we can't do any condom demonstrations, we
Let's be realistic, we're looking at young people that are the highest at risk
There really is very little to no support from the board of ed in terms of getting the young people the education they need.
One of the things is that it's very ahrd to get permission to get into the schools
Once you jump through all the schools there are
They limit you in terms of what you say and can do
Yo ucan't do condom demonstrations
Abstinence only
We have to be realistic, it's not working
In central Brooklyn, climitia and syphilis is on the rise
If we continue to do nothing other things will be on the rise again
There was a program that was based at the board of ed
There's always barriers that the board of ed is constantly putting up
You have to get permission from the board of ed, then it's up to the principal for you to give you a time
They don't think that HIV is a priority
Usually that's done during a one-week session
They'll ask a CBO who have gotten permission
Just a big 100 young people
Lecture
When you start to talk about behavior change, it happens over consistent change over time
You can't expect that to be enough
They either have a health fair
Maxwell HS will give us a classroom over a week
Wingate HS
Erasmus HS
Tilden HS
Monroe HS
Sheepshead Bay HS
Canarsie HS
They're quicker to say come in a do a lecture style workshop
We'll say what kind of workshop do you want us to do?
We have a requirement that when we're in the school that we're in the schools for three days and that we're working with the same young people
We won't do large lectures anymore
Early last yaer we changed because we realized that they don’t work. We really have to look at what we were doing. We weren’t making an impact.
You're one person that's trying to speak to a large group like that.
We said these don't work anymore, we have to start doing something different
It's either 2-3 days
The other thing a lot of the teachers are uncomfortable
This is an easy way that a CBO can come in and do your job for you
Maxwell has been very accommodating
We have a couple of schools that are very accommodating because they're starting to see the results
We go in through the Coorrdinator of Student Activities or the Substance Abuse person
They have one on one sessions with these young people and so they're measuring their decsisions
I need three days to work with those classes
On the first day I'm going to do the HIV education with them, and on the second day I'm doing to do safer sex and
On the first day we do a questionnaire and the post
We look at the pre and see what their scores were
If they're scores did not increase, that will allow us to come back for a day or two is Maxwell
We will go over the HIV stuff and on the second day we'll do the post and we usually see an increase
They'll give us things like there's exams coming up
One of the things we don't get a lot in Central Brooklyn, we get a lot of schools in Williamsburg, we get a lot of schools in Bed-Sty
Erasmus
But those schools we haven't even been to in over a year
They're not willing to give us the time
I think one of the first thing I would pull out is the stats
Just to show them what is going on in central Brooklyn
That would show that one in five young people in central Brooklyn is either HIV positive or at risk for getting HIV
I would takek some young people in my program who have realized the need to educate their peers
That's the angle that I would take
I think that that would make the most impact
They need to start hearing from the young people
Who are they talking to when they are developing their curriculum?
After school let's say if they want us to do something after school
If it's after school
Young people listen to each other. If we think about ourselves about what we learned growing up, we didn't learn it from our parents, we learn it from our peers.
The best people to teach are their own teens
We can't give out any condoms, we can't discuss an
Our focus has to be abstinence
That depends on the teacher
Obviously the young people need to learn how to protect themselves because they're out there having sex
If abstinence is not an option for them we need to meet them where they're at and talk to them about how to protect themselves
Our funders were saying to us that you're going into the schools and
El Puente, Project Reach Youth
Because our funders have said to us it's great that you're going but they're only give you lecture-hall style and those don't work and you need to do something different
It was a little bit of us realizing that it doesn't work and a little bit of us realizing it
A lot of the schools are not willing to give us the two or three days, the requests have lessened
We haven't done a school since before the summer
Not one call this semester
Of course that's bad
Young people are in schools every day, and since the semester has started no one has called to say we need you to come in and talk to these young people
Some schools it has to be done before the school year is over so some schools may wait until May/June some school it has to be done before January they may wait until before January just before Christmas
Or World AIDS Day is coming up
We're not going to send out staff to do that because we know that they're not effective
We've been here for 14 years
There's no more there's no less
Lots of hoops to jump through
There is a protocol that you have to go through to get permimssion to
Trying to get into new schools and trying to have a conversation with people at 31 Livingston
It's never ending
Extremely frustrating
I would make it a part of their health classes
Where a part of their education is HIV education and where the teacher has got to be a a trained HIV educator
Given by several organizations in the city
Lots of training all over the city
Also what I would do is have speakers that would come in every month to come in and cover a different topic
In this way the information is constantly being reinforced and all of this would be based around a curriculum that would be based before
In that curriculum she would have contacts from different CBOs where she could have different workshops for her or him
I think the teacher needs to be trained in being competent in talking with adolescents
We can go in and do the workshops and then we leave
If the young person has a question that has a question that
It would be a nice combination of both
Young people are having sex in the hallways in the staircases at school
Behaviors would start to change
"It's like music, you hear that music constantly, but you start to sing it."
I happened to get my hand on the old curriculum
It's so old and so outdated
That curriculum was developed when HIV first came out and it's never been changed
28 peer educators
What they do is they use theatre role-play skits, poetry to talk to their peers
We also have a street outreach team
Provide referrals
Very unlike the board of ed, we can go in and we can cover any topic, we can do the condom demonstrations and we can talk about absitenence there is no limit to what we can do
One organization that we go through which is called Flatbush Community Development
In order to play basketball you have to go through some education
You've got to listen for 45 minutes for a week for this particular
They will call us and will set it up with us
We do those very often
For example today we're going to Concord, which is a special program for women
We're going to Concord three times this month
I don't particularly know why
I can guess why
Many years ago someone said that if you talk to them about condoms that they will have sex
"But they're already having sex, so I don't know."
Grace Dezago
Maxwell HS
718-345-9100
I think one of the main things about this particular nabe is that we're working with young people who are minority and not just minority in the sense of the color of their skin but in terms of where they live.s there's not a lot fo funding that comes into where they live
Because all of the young people go to a school it's important that
Not that they get it less because of the neighborhood that they're in.
When we ta
They need to see themselves getting out of theis
If we don't provide them with the tools to get out of the neighborhood
A lot of them are getting infected at age 13, 14 or 15 so a lot of them may not live to see their 30th birthday
Because the rate of infection in cetral Brooklyn is so high. It becomes so much of an urgency
And that's the urgency of it
As professionals, we see it
Do the young people recognize that/ I don't hink they do.
You can't really look at someone and know whether or not their positive.
For a lot of the young people, unless it's happening at my front door, it's my neighbors' buisiness.
It only started to go up in the last eight to ten years
That was when we started to see a dramatic increase in the numbers and even in adolescents
My thing is from all the way tracing back to slavery til now
People of color have a self-hate and this may that they play out the self-hate because of salvery and the williie lynch story and all these other things that happened. This may be one of the ways that we self hate that is so strong in our own communities.
I think that if we teach our young people to love themselves first then a lot of what we see happening may deteriorate.
I was at Wingate HS as a student and a friend of mine was involved in the program
All my summers before that I had gone to camp
That particular summer I didn't want to go to camp anymore
I met the director and she told me about the program and I thought it was something to do
I didn't want to do anything political
Then I started to work in the community and I started to love it
That was when I made the decision that I wanted to work in my community
I definitely want to work with young people and I want to work in public health
We've gone to meetings where we've gone with people in other states
They can't understand why it's so hard for us to get in the schools in New York
Anabel Perez
Youth Base
718-935-5606