Y-PEER: Recognizing Achievements and Addressing Challenges
The Youth Peer Education Network is a groundbreaking and comprehensive youth-to-youth initiative pioneered by UNFPA. Y-PEER is a network of more than 634 NGOs, CBOs, schools and governmental institutions; involving about 7,300 young people from 38 different countries from Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Middle East, North Africa, East Africa .
The Y-PEER training model for capacity building till now consisted of: 156 national training of trainers with 9,182 trainers trained and 166,788 young people reached through trainings and activities in schools; it also comprises 107 advanced trainers; specialized trainings where about 60 advanced/certified trainers in theatre based peer education were trained, and they provided 39 training events that resulted in other 846 new educators trained, also there are 27 new trained trainers on HIV and Sex Work etc.
What makes Y-PEER attractive?
The partnership with MTV
Social networking meeting people/expending social networks
Strengthening skills in peer education
New learning opportunities
The Y-PEER Moldova project started in September 2004, with training the first generation of peer educators - 20 young people / adolescents aged between 15 - 20 years. They were selected on a contest base, in two phases: analyze of resumes and of motivation letters and an interview. Until now, Y-PEER Moldova has formed 4 generations of peer educators, counting up to the total of 85 young people and adolescents aged between 15 - 20 years. At the moment there are more than 60 active young people in the Y-PEER National Network.
The objectives of the Y-PEER Moldova Network are:
Promotion of a healthy lifestyle and spreading the information according to the principle from peer to peer;
Development of personalities of the adolescents from the Republic of Moldova;
Offering opportunities of social and civic participation;
Creation of a network of peer educators in the field of the reproductive health.
Peer education is the process whereby well-trained and motivated young people undertake informal or organized educational activities with their peers (those similar to themselves in age, background, or interests). These activities, occurring over an extended period of time, are aimed at developing young people's knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and skills and at enabling them to be responsible for and to protect their own health.
Peer education is being used in the framework of youth programmes that focus on reproductive health and HIV prevention all over the world. Approaches such as peer education offer many advantages to the programmes, to the target group and to communities, in general. The practice showed that well conceived and implemented programmes can contribute to a great extent towards improving the knowledge, attitudes and habitudes of young people regarding the reproductive health and the prevention of HIV.
What organizations promote the peer education in the Republic of Moldova?
In the Republic of Moldova there are many organizations that promote the peer education, they come from different fields such as:
Education regarding sexual and reproductive health and rights - Family Planning Association of Moldova;
Education regarding the prevention of human trafficking and of domestic violence - "La Strada";
Education in the field of HIV/AIDS prevention among young people - National Resource Centre for Young People;
Education in the field of children rights - Child Rights Information Centre etc.
How many peer education networks exist in Moldova?
It is difficult to mention a concrete number, but for sure there are many such networks. They can be differentiated by size, type of activities, beneficiaries they address, regions and communities where they act.
