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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 27, 2003
Guinean Youth Drive Innovative HIV/AIDS and Pregnancy
Prevention Program Focused on Abstinence, Condom Use
Hairdressers, Cafés, and Tailors Participate in Health Communication Program
BALTIMORE- Imagine instead of just discussing the weather and local gossip, your hairdresser delivered valuable health information while your were stuck in the chair for hours. That's exactly what happened in a community-based program in Guinea to reduce unintended pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and HIV/AIDS.
The Guinea Youth Campaign owes much of its success to the young adults involved in the program's design from the start and the participation of small businesses like cafés, tailors, and hairdressers. The innovative program led to more openness to discussing youth sexuality issues in the community by spreading the word about abstinence and condom use, according to the June issue of Communication Impact!, a two-page newsletter from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health/Center for Communication Programs (CCP).
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) supports the PRISM project, which implemented the Guinea Youth Campaign. In partnership with CCP, Management Sciences for Health (MSH) leads the PRISM (Pour Renforcer les Interventions en Santé Reproductive et MST/SIDA) project.
"Our research found that both males and females reported increased community openness in discussing youth sexuality in the areas where we implemented the campaign," said Guillaume Bakadi, CCP's Country Representative in Guinea. "This openness is absolutely required to help us prevent HIV/AIDS and unintended pregnancies because talking about the problem is the first step in solving the problem."
PRISM partnered with small businesses to carry out many of the community mobilization activities. The shops displayed HIV/AIDS and pregnancy prevention information and served as sources of information and/or referrals. The program also trained adolescent boys and girls to act as "peer educators" to reach other young adults through sporting events, social groups, and traditional Guinean tea ceremonies called grains.
In addition to increasing community openness about youth sexuality, the Guinea Youth Campaign also resulted in increased condom use among young men. Young women, on the other hand, showed significantly higher odds of contemplating abstinence.
With representatives in more than 30 countries, Johns Hopkins' CCP is a pioneer in the field of strategic, research-based communication programs for behavior change and health promotion that have helped transform the theory and practice of public health communication. To order a copy of the Communication Impact!, please contact orders@jhuccp.org or order online through the CCP website.
For further information contact: Kim Martin at Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs, 111 Market Place, Suite 310, Baltimore, Maryland 21202, USA. Tel: 410 659-6140; Fax: 410 659-6266 e-mail: press@jhuccp.org.
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