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| MyAge training of the champions |
… ‘awkward’ questions when
seeking treatment removed
Brighton Chiseva
MASVINGO – MyAge Zimbabwe, a youth-focused Non-Governmental
Organisation (NGO), is scaling up sexual reproductive health and rights
education in Masvingo through training peer to peer champions.
A total of 40 youths below the
age of 24 years were trained at a workshop which sought to equip them with
skills needed for them to be able to train their own peers.
Beneficiaries included youths
with disabilities, youths with HIV, youths in business and students in tertiary
institutions.
MyAge Zimbabwe’s Girls Choose
programmes officer Chengetai Zumbika said the initiative had so far brought
together 75 young people who now have skills to share their knowledge with
others.
“We have discovered that most
youths shy away from seeking sexual and reproductive health-related services
due to the many ‘awkward’ questions they are asked at clinics and hospitals.
Therefore, our champions will identify cases and persuade them to go and seek
attention as well as refer them to the right places,” said Zumbika
Each champion will get a monetary
token depending on the number of people he or she would have referred.
“A person who needs services will
simply go to the referral point and produce the slip with his or her details already
written on them. The service provider will not ask any questions because all
the details are already written on the slip,” said Zumbika
The training workshop was done in
collaboration with service providers including Population Services International
(PSI), Centre for Sexual Health and HIV and Aids Research (CeHHAR), Hands of
Hope, Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ) among others.
The champions will be referring
people to local council clinics, Masvingo Provincial Hospital, New Start Centre
and other places for services like cancer screening, Sexually Transmitted
Infections (STI) treatment; HIV related services as well as to access condoms.
