Peace starts with a smile.
Scout mobilisation to achieve the UN Millenium Development Goals
|
|
Scoutisme BéninoisBenin |
|
Scouts in Benin are raising awareness of the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals and in particular HIV/AIDS awareness, and are training their young leaders to distribute information on the subject. In order to do this, they have created a youth information and promotion centre where young people can learn to use computers, use a library, attend lectures, seminars, and take part in discussion groups. The Scouts are also launching an awareness campaign, using adapted and simplified versions of the Millennium Campaign kits.
Categories :
Education Health : HIV/AIDS Information, Communication and Technology MDG 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger MDG 2: Achieve universal primary education MDG 3: Promote gender equality and empower women MDG 4: Reduce child mortality MDG 5: Improve maternal health MDG 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria & other diseases MDG 7: Ensure environmental sustainability MDG 8: Develop global partnership for development Social Development and Inclusion
Education Health : HIV/AIDS Information, Communication and Technology MDG 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger MDG 2: Achieve universal primary education MDG 3: Promote gender equality and empower women MDG 4: Reduce child mortality MDG 5: Improve maternal health MDG 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria & other diseases MDG 7: Ensure environmental sustainability MDG 8: Develop global partnership for development Social Development and Inclusion
Description
The Scouts have long been working on vaccination and HIV/AIDS awareness programmes, as well as on community development and social mobilisation actions, issues which are part of the UN's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This project aims to promote the MDGs by training the Scouts on this issue, creating a permanent information centre and launching an awareness campaign.
The first phase is to reinforce the capacities of the Beninese Scouts by training 100 new leaders who will be tasked to create new Scout units throughout the country. The Association will then create a youth information and promotion centre where young people will be able to meet, train, learn, use computers, have access to a library, attend lectures, seminars, and participate in discussions.
The third phase is an awareness campaign on the Millennium Development Goals. The Millennium Campaign kits will be adapted to the country and simplified with the help and support of the UN Development Programme and UN Volunteers.
As part of the above project, Benin Scouts are organising education and sensitisation sessions on HIV/AIDS, using radio programmes, workshops, meetings and consultations for advocacy on HIV/AIDS. The trained Scout leaders now constitute a permanent pool of resource people in communication and training of young people against HIV/AIDS and are in turn educating other scouts who in turn can sensitise other young people.
Through their programme, the Beninese hope to:
- Sensitise and inform more than 8 000 young people about the danger of HIV/AIDS and how to prevent infection
- Make the local scout structures a potential reference point in the HIV/AIDS eradication process
- Make every scout an HIV/AIDS fighter
- Decrease the HIV/AIDS prevalence rate among young people in the department of Borgou
Thus far, the programme has been successful on two fronts: Firstly, over a two-month period since the inception of the programme,the Scouts have trained 113 scouts who conducted 320 local sensitisation sessions and 8 mass sensitisation animations, reaching a total of 3,324 beneficiaries. Among the beneficiaries were young apprentices as well as young people who had dropped out of school. Secondly, the programme succeeded in drawing on inter-ministerial collaboration, supported by international partners and the programme is now being implemented by the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Leisure in partnership with the Ministry of Health, through the National Programme Against AIDS, and is supported by the UNDP and UNV. Initial results indicate that the programme has increased confidence among its recipients that may help reduce stigmatisation, and that it has laid the basis for more communication efforts around HIV/AIDS.
