Fikirte Kibret is a peer educator in the ADVANCE (AIDS, Volunteerism and Civic Education) programme which is an Ethiopia YMCA HIV/AIDS prevention and awareness campaign.
“Age really matters as you get experience through age but the training and exposure we have as peer educators gives us maturity,” said 24-year-old Fikirte, at YMCA Urael in the capital city, Addis Ababa.
“Even though we are the same age, we have been equipped with skills and knowledge and can talk openly about sex and condoms in a culture where even saying the word ‘condom’ was taboo before we started the programme and menstruation was not even spoken about between mothers and daughters. As peer educators we are respected and at the same time we are accepted because we are the same age as the youth we are working with.”
The ADVANCE programme will reach 50 000 young people aged 10-29 by 2010. The initiative will also provide extensive support to more than 5 000 orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) affected by the HIV/AIDS crises, including access to recreational, educational, medical and general support services.
Fikirta has come across many cases of gender violence during her time as a peer educator. “Women generally cannot negotiate safe sex. Also, there are cases of young girls from poor areas who will have sex with older men who then give them money for basics like school stationery.”
Fikirta told of a particularly difficult case she dealt with as a peer educator, where a 16-year-old girl was taken out of high school by her gangster boyfriend and kept captive in a rented room for over a year. She was denied contact with her family and even the neighbours, although Fikirta managed to negotiate with the boyfriend that she still had contact with her. When the boyfriend died of AIDS, the young girl and her baby were finally freed. Upon testing HIV-positive, this young girl was so angry that she wanted to have unprotected sex with men as a means of misplaced revenge.
Fortunately through Fikirta’s constant peer intervention, this girl is now campaigning about HIV/AIDS, safe sex and gender violence. “We can see change through this programme – it may be slow, but then it takes time to confront cultural taboos.”
