Youth Empowerment Skills! (YES!)

Under the YES! project, AMAL provides HIV/AIDS awareness and sensitisation, rights-based training, life skills training, non-formal education/vocational training, assertiveness and self-defense classes, peer education, training of trainers, monthly social and cultural activities, and development of community organisation.

Chootas are young men working for Ustaads, or small business owners. To access the degree to which chootas are victims of sexual abuse and to understand their vulnerability to AIDS, AMAL used Rapid Situational Analysis to collect information. AMAL then worked on developing a community group. Elections were held and officers selected from among Gawal Mandi's inhabitants: parents, Ustaads, working and non-working children, and shop owners. The goal of the organisation was to guide AMAL in the training of 12 Ustaads to work as peer educators. These Ustaads would, in turn, work to educate chootas as well as their peers. To this end, AMAL developed a toolkit consisting of a 16-chapter training manual (covering sexual abuse, nutrition, education, housing, health and medical care, and vocation), graphic materials, audio-cassettes, caps, badges, and leaflets. Using this toolkit, AMAL organised a two-day workshop for the community group. The training focussed on community development, human/child rights, and basic health practices. A one-day training session was organised for the Ustaads. The 12 participants were taught that condoms are not merely useful in preventing pregnancy, but also in protecting against disease. This message was intended to communicate that the kind of sex they practice (with prostitutes) also exposes them to the risk of getting disease. Members of the community group and the Ustaads, together with AMAL, then identified 20 children who would be trained as peer educators.

Training for the 20 children includes an assertiveness skills component that emphasises negotiation (how to avoid having to have sex) and safe sex skills, which are designed to help the youth when they confronted by their Ustaads. Management and relationship building were also emphasised. These children have a temporary office where they may meet and share information. The children manage the entire office and train their peers. Peer educators, both Ustaads and chootas, are paid Rs. 500 a month.

As part of this programme, a clinic offering regular health services was established in March 2002. This clinic promotes, among other things, condom use and makes condoms available (condoms are supplied Green Star Social Marketing). The clinic is staffed by both male and female medical personnel on a voluntary basis in collaboration with Pakistan Optometrist Society, a local NGO. It operates six days a week in the evening and is open for four hours. Although the clinic is mostly used by women as is there is no public health care clinic in the area, children are encouraged and do use the clinic as do Ustaads. The Ustaads go there for treatment of infected wounds or other ailments such as gastroenteritis. Some visit to get treatment for STIs. Some go just to get condoms.

Youth, Children, Gender, HIV/AIDS, Reproductive Health, Rights.

AMAL estimates that between 15 to 20 percent of chootas are sexually abused. HIV/AIDS prevalence is low among children in Pakistan, but organisers stress that the potential for the disease to spread is high. According to government statistics, 0.001 percent of the 1,710 AIDS patients in the country are children. However, health experts believe that statistics for the total number of HIV-positive people is unrealistic, estimating the number to be as high as 80,000, as many cases go unreported or are simply not diagnosed. Approaching children on this subject is not easy in this deeply Islamic country. Usman Ali Butt, aged 17, says that "When I inform other children [about HIV/AIDS, they are shy and wonder why I'm talking to them specifically, as many will not admit that they are having sex."

The project is situated in an urban slum known as Gawal Mandi in an old and densely populated area of the city of Rawalpindi. Gawal Mandi is the third largest market of automobile spare parts in the city. Socio-economic status of the people of the locality is generally very low. Crime levels are high, especially among youth (most of whom are illiterate). Availability of cheap labor and the low rents attract legal and illegal businesses to this location. Some 500 boys are employed in workshops in this area. In the settlements, there are no toilet or bathing facilities, and health facilities are lacking.

Up to 3,000 young people will be trained as part of YES! Pre- and post-testing will be conducted. A questionnaire will be administered to the two sets of educators: primary and secondary. Indicators include awareness of safe sex behaviour and condom use. To date, reports show that attitudes about condom use have changed and condom use has increased to about 10-12 percent among Ustaads and chootas during the last year.