Project Launch:

The High School Health Promoters in Chuquibamba was a very successful project -- three different local educational institutions benefited. With a $500 grant from World Connect’s Kids to Kids Program, youth health promoters were trained to teach their peers about sexually transmitted diseases, mainly HIV/AIDS, and prevention of adolescent pregnancy. A total of twenty peer health promoters were trained in two months, and their educational outreach impacted 357 of their peers. At the end of the 2010 school year, the majority of the students in the community were able to note three methods of pregnancy prevention as well as three ways to contract HIV. The youth health promoters spoke on radio shows and marched in a parade for World AIDS Day to spread the information even further into their community. Because of the success of this project, the health promoters now have a regular place in each of the three schools and are an annual, school-sponsored extra-curricular activity. New youth health promoters are being trained each year and the access to knowledge and training on important health topics for kids is continuing to rise.