Peer education based on life skills has become very popular in the field of HIV prevention. Peer educators are seen as ‘opinion leaders’ – respected and admired by other members of the community. This opinion leader’s role is to advocate for healthy lifestyles (such as safe sex, no smoking, etc.) and their peers wish to follow them. 

 

Ministry of Education (MOE) in cooperation with UNFPA and through the Global fund project has succeeded to create a core group of peer educators in a selected number of schools. MOE trained 160 students as peer educators in 4 directorates (Jerusalem, Jerusalem suburbs, Salfeet, and South Hebron). Those students were trained on major life skills such as: communication, peer pressure, decision making, problem solving, in addition to major awareness messages on HIV and AIDS and how to deliver to other students.

 

Furthermore, Ministry of education in cooperation with UNFPA held an electronic competition to increase the awareness and knowledge of the students about HIV and AIDS in both west bank and Gaza directorate.

 

The initial findings of all these efforts are encouraging where students knowledge, attitudes and practices are improved in the domain of HIV preventions, also leadership skills are improved, peer education provides a challenging, rewarding opportunity to young people to develop their leadership skills, gain the respect of their peers, and improve their own knowledge and skills. Peer educators often change their own behavior after becoming a peer educator and their relationship with the teachers are improved, so the ministry is strongly adapting this approach in different projects.