SHENZHEN, China – “HIV is so close to us,” said Xiao Liu, a student from Chongqing City in China’s south-west. “HIV hit a close friend of mine when he had sex for the first time at his 19-years birthday. He can’t be here today because he can’t expose his HIV-positive status. But he asked me to say to you that HIV is one of the risks that we are all confronting.”

Xiao Liu shared this story with other young people participating in the first national peer educators training camp.

At the beginning of the summer, 60 young people aged 18-24 from all over China gathered in Shenzhen to attend the first national peer educators training camp. They wanted to be qualified and passionate peer educators to spread messages on sexual and reproductive health among their peers. All of them were all very excited and curious to be in this workshop, which would focus on “sex”, a topic that is not openly discussed in China.
 

Voicing out issues of concerns

At the launch of the training camp, these young people filled a huge map of China with cards carrying their messages about the issues young people from their provinces were most concerned with.

“Isn’t it the same to have boys or girls?”

“In universities, boys talk more about opening rooms with girlfriends in hotels, while girls talk more about consequences of unwanted pregnancies.”

“What are the routes of HIV transmission and what are the ways to avoid that?”

“If someone turns out to be gay, will he be accepted by other men?”

“Sex education goes on every year. But knowledge does not equal wisdom.”

“Apart from internet searches, are there other ways to be informed about sexual and reproductive health?”

“Young people living with HIV should play a role in HIV prevention.”

These simple messages formed the foundation of the Youth Declaration this group presented to UNFPA and its national partner China Family Planning Association (CFPA), the sponsors of the workshop. The Declaration stated: “Every young person, irrespective of age, sex, ethnic origin, religion, sexual identity and marital status, needs to have:

   - accurate and complete knowledge and information about reproductive health,
   - confidential, youth-friendly, non-discriminatory and accessible services,
   - and a strongly supportive and caring social environment.”

The Youth Declaration also called for concrete and targeted information, counselling and services to be provided to the more vulnerable young people, including young migrant workers, ethnic minority young people, those who live in remote areas and other marginalized groups.

Arie Hoekman, UNFPA Representative to China, echoed the call from the young people: “Every one of you has the right to comprehensive sexuality education, and to access to youth-friendly reproductive health services. UNFPA will continue to advocate for the right policies, investments and social support to be put in place so that you can all enjoy healthier lives free of poverty, violence and exploitation.”
 

Youth to youth

Who would be lecturing to the enthusiastic group of young people? It wasn’t easy to tell in the beginning because no professor-like figures could be found in the crowd.

China Youth Network (CYN), a Beijing-based student volunteers group supported by UNFPA China and CFPA, shouldered the responsibilities of recruiting participants, designing and preparing the training programme, and dialoguing with their sponsoring agencies. Their core members also acted as trainers and facilitators of most sessions.

“This workshop will not only test our abilities as peer education trainers, but also provides a good opportunity for us to expand,” said Gaoshan Junjian, a long-serving CYN core member who is finishing his undergraduate study this year. “As we ‘seniors’ are leaving, we hope this event will help our new members grow.” He was referring to four new CYN members from Beijing-based universities, who will be called on to lead CYN in the near future.

Y-PEER, a UNFPA-supported global youth network, sent two trainers from other Asia-Pacific countries to join the CYN team. They brought rich experiences in networking and conducting training and were able to adapt training programmes to the Chinese context. In particular, they inspired the participants with creative ways of carrying out activities even in the absence of funding.
 

Changing values, increasing risks

With changing social values, Chinese youth have been exposed to increasing reproductive health risks, including unsafe sex, unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections including HIV. An UNFPA-supported national survey conducted in China showed that even though the majority of unmarried youth are open to having sex before marriage, only a very small portion of them – less than 5 per cent, are well informed about reproductive health. Less than 15 per cent had correct knowledge about preventing HIV infection.

In school, the sections on sexual and reproductive health in the textbooks were often skipped because they were boring. Internet has become the main source of information, but it is not always accurate and can sometimes be misleading. The tireless trainers and trainees demonstrated that it can be fun to talk about “sex” and to talk about it “right”.

With almost all training sessions carefully planned in the form of edutainment, this group hardly needed any energizer to keep the highest level of energy throughout the week. Taking correct use of condoms as an example, “condom relay game” and mock outreach sessions ensured everyone got a chance to practise at least once.

Even in the evenings, the participants were engaged with group works that were both entertaining and educational. The Fun Sports evening was made an Olympics of games that could be linked to sexual and reproductive health.

“Nobody is shy when playing these games – it’s important for peer educators to talk openly about these taboo subjects,” said Xiao Lu, an experienced CYN member.
 

Youth-adult partnership

Thanks to the efforts of China Family Planning Association, a group of youth programme officers from its local branches all over China were invited to attend selected sessions together with the young people.

“As a pioneer in promoting youth-adult partnership, CFPA and its branches will play a supporting role to enable these young people to apply what they learn here,” said Li Lihe, CFPA’s youth programme officer.

Sitting at the same tables, the guest adult participants were amazed at learning from the younger ones through role play and games, including how to communicate with young people, how to plan, operate and monitor youth programmes with young people’s involvement, and how to retain youth volunteers.

“The young people inspired us. We could make our community activity centre into a more attractive youth health club to better cater to the needs of young migrant workers,” said Ms. Chen, Secretary General of the Family Planning Association in a district in Hainan Province.

“Everyone is so proud of being the alumni of the first national training camp,” said Liu Chennan, a veteran CYN volunteer and the lead facilitator of the camp. A national network has already been formed, in the real world and virtually through social media connections.

“They have appointed among themselves key responsible persons to monitor progress of volunteering after the workshop,” said Liu, before the end of the training. “I am sure they will keep the momentum going.”

– Gao Cuiling