Recently relaunched Y-PEER News Bulletin with you. This edition contains information and updates from mid-August to late September and is put together by an amazing editorial team, consisting of Y-Peerers from different regions and with diverse backgrounds, so hopefully while reading it, you will be able to feel how diverse and interesting our network is.
4. Y-PEER Armenia has organized several events in August-September period, some of which includes:
ï· Youth event for International Day of Youth (12th of August), to empower young people and raise awareness about the achievements and challenges of youth. It incorporated a Youth Expo, Youth Talks, Job Fair for young people looking for a career in ACBA-CREDIT AGRICOLE BANK, as well as performances by a well-known rock bands, where around 200 young people celebrated the IYD. The celebration concluded with emotional and energetic performances by The Beautiful Project, popular Armenian rock band, and DJ Beatman;
ï· 10 TOTs (Training of Trainers) in several regions. The themes of the trainings were SRHR and Healthy lifestyle, which resulted in 220 young people who are now aware about SRHR and Healthy lifestyle issues and trained and able to share their knowledge and skills with the peers;
ï· 10 capacity building trainings for Civil Society organizations. (2 of which are planned to be done during the last week of September), resulting in 160 young people being trained about SRHR issues (after the last trainings the number of young people will be about 200), as well as develop their skills for sharing their knowledge by using peer to peer education.
With the help of Y-PEER Azerbaijan, on May 12th-16th, 2014 Hilton Baku organized Career Week within Careers@Hilton Live: Youth in Hospitality Month.
On the third day of the Career Week Hilton Baku invited disabled people to the hotel to give them an idea of the work of various departments and roles within them.
All of them got a chance to try themselves in various job capacities
while Hilton employees were supervising them.
Career Week was a unique opportunity to inspire those looking
for employment about careers in the hospitality industry, and to
support them by providing guidance on the skills that are vital to
succeed in the workplace and beyond.
See the video here:
5. A year passed from the time when Y-PEER advertizing campaign in Belarus
started. And now the front man of the music band âOpen Spaceâ Vitaly Matievsky
whose face is on the billboards all over the Belarusian capital tells how and why he became
a peer educator, what peer education advantages are and whether there is anything
common between peer education and music.
â Vitaly, how did you become a trainer?
Everything started from my cooperation with the UN Population
Fund when the band supported the project on home violence
prevention. Afterwards our collaboration grew stronger and the
UNFPA suggested the band âOpen Spaceâ becoming the Y-PEER
Goodwill Ambassadors in Belarus. We all passed through the peer
education trainings. That is when I realized the strength of this
technology and started to develop my peer educatorâs skills. That was
a totally volunteer initiative.
â How do youngsters see you at the trainings?
In peer education programmes it is very important to be seen by the training participants
(these are mostly youth at the age of 15-22) as a peer who can tell something new and
interesting. They shouldnât be embarrassed to share their experience or to ask the question
that canât be addressed to parents. The issue can be any but the methodology should be
interesting and amusing. Mostly the topical issues for this age are HIV-prevention, reproductive
health, psychosexology of relations. Youngsters are usually satisfied and full of impressions.
â How is peer education connected to your music?
At the moment I canât say that my volunteer initiatives are somehow connected to music.
These are just two spheres that Iâm very fond of.
â Do you get any new information at the trainings?
Of course. Every training is not a lection. Much time is dedicated to discussions. So every participant has opportunity to tell something from his/her life experience. One of the main advantages of the training is that no one can impose any opinion. Thereâs space to discuss the issue and to let everyone decide what is true, especially when it comes to interpersonal relations. If the issue is HIV-prevention, the information is given in details but it is understandable and without any pessimism.
â How do your friends see your peer education activities?
Positively, as any good initiative should be supported. I think that it is very important to have hobbies. That is not about computer games but it is something that makes your family and society life better. This can be sport, business, art, volunteering, etc.
6. On 13th September, Y-PEER Bhutan had a sensitization program in Royal Thimphu Collage RTC, together with students, leaders and residents discussing how Y-PEER would be successful by helping students and planning future activities.
Source: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ypeerbhutan
The 3rd national peer education
training of trainers (TOT)
Date: 14 - 17th July
Location: Beijing
The training is an annual event of Y-PEER China to train and select peer educators throughout China since the first one in Shenzhen back in 2012. This year we invited 63 peer educators all over China including those from remote provinces such as Yunnan and Xinjiang. The training is mainly held by Y-PEER China with the support of China Family Planning Association (CFPA) and UNFPA.
ToT involved 63 peer educators from 30 universities who applied to SRH program from CYN and CFPA, Y-PEER China members, Ping Hong(CFPA Associated Secretary) Lihe Li and Xiao Liang (CFPA program manager) Dr.jo (UNFPA APRO) Mr Gaoshan Junjian (UNFPA China). The training inspired participant in Guangzhou and Changsha, which announced the establishments of local network later on.
Training of peer educators
After attending the 3rd national TOT in Beijing this summer,
those Guangzhou delegates decided to speed up
the pace of organizing local network in Guangzhou with the help of local
Family Planning Association and government. As provincial level training
was on the agenda, Y-PEER China organized Training of peer educator from
27-30 August in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province.
Objective of this event was to pave the way for building local
network and recruit local network volunteers,
as 32 young leaders from 10 universities in 3 cities
in Guangdong Province and Guangdong Family Planning Association
participated. As a result Guangdong Youth Network (GYN) was
established, as 13 volunteers were recruited in GYN
for the first time.
7. [Workshop] of experienced peer educators
Brief Introduction: The workshop is an assembling of experienced peer educators in Beijing, which
lasted for 6 hours. The workshop focused on Y-PEER patter peer education
which is quite innovative for most participants Objective: a. To recruit volunteers for Y-PEER China b. To provide a chance for peer educators in Beijing to exchange experience
and gains Participants: a. 32 peer educators in Beijing b. Y-PEER China members, CFPA program manager, UNFPA program assistant Outcomes: a. selected peer educators as volunteers of Y-PEER China b. selected peer educators to attend national training to be held in Wuhan
on 19th September.
[Online Activity] Comic series about condom-using and dating tips
Y-PEER China took chance of Chinese Valentineâs Day as the time to put the comic series on Weibo (Chinese Version of Twitter). Valentineâs Day is considered as the high-incidence season of unprotected sex, and Y-PEER China produced a serious of comics to transmit the knowledge of condom-use and dating tips. We applied a topic on Weibo and the topic can be translated to âLove Tipsâ.
Outcome: These Comic series on Weibo have achieved 1.955 million page views.
Y-PEER EGYPT network is an efficient network which spread to 21 cities and contains more than 200 trainer and also more than 65 association and Youth initiative , and this allows them to work in villages and suburbs, In an another hand.. The political circumstances didn't stop us from working in the streets,in fact it made us insist to deliver our messages with new ways and techniques to the largest possible number of individuals especially those who do not have access to that information. Y-PEER EGYPT network depends on the( Entertaining Education) which makes the information more easy to be consumed by participating to get that information. In the recent period Y-PEER Egypt has delivered several trainings in several cities,
for example, in North Sinai: theater training for the partner associations ,in Menoufia:
peer educators training, and in Ismailia: training of ( the Higher Committee of Scientific
Research) team building and setting goals. We also participated on the national
celeberations of International Youth Day in collaboration with UNFPA Egypt country
office & we conducted one of the most amazing trainings which was in collaboration
with the Egyptian ministery of health under the title of ( Health care for the Syrian
refugees ) as it was targeting one of the most risk groups who are the refugees suffering
from very challenging conditions on all the levels , psychologically ,physically and socially.
In the upcoming period, we are having a campaign of Civic Engagement which aim
at engaging the girls
especially in upper Egypt
in the civil society and volunteerism
8. #Celebrities4YPEER Workshop in Dubai
HARNESING POTENTIAL OF CELEBRITIES IN
ADVOCATING FOR YOUNG PEOPLE ISSUES,
WITH PARTICULAR FOCUS ON HIV PREVENTION,
Dubai, UAE
The Workshop for celebrities advocating for young people issues took place at 11-12th September in Mövenpick Hotel Ibn Battuta Gate, Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
During two amazing and productive days famous singers, musicians,
TV stars, bloggers from Egypt, Philistine, Romania, Tunisia,
Turkey, Macedonia and Morocco had learn how to develop
powerful and channel relevant messages targeting youth
issues with particular focus on HIV prevention through
various social media tools and advocacy.
One of the most important parts of the Workshop was a session
on writing a one minute message during an advocacy campaign!
âCelebrities4YPEERâ workshop provided celebrities with the right skills to formulate & convey short messages based on given information on topics of HIV/AIDS & STIs through offline & online media channels.
It takes time to create important and powerful statements, and within the only one minute it is difficult to address important and touchable information which can help young people to deal with their issues. However, our celebrities had a lot of practice to train their skills
during the Workshop.
At the second day of the Workshop there was a demonstration of press-
conference to allow celebrities to experience creating messages in a short
time and reacting to questions asked about young people in their media
appearance.
#Celebrities4YPEER Workshop was supported by Y-PEER International, H&M and UNFPA
More information about the Celebrities4YPEER you can find using the hashtag #Celebrities4YPEER
or following the link below:
https://www.facebook.com/YPEER.Network
9. Though the very difficult political current situation,
there are some young people who are struggling to make a change
in the world they are living . Y-PEER IRAQ youth are â as usual- in
the front of those youth doing activities and peer education sessions
to pass the knowledge to their peers.
During the last period , they held peer education sessions in the
refugees camps in ERBIL on 7:11 September with the refugees ,
the trainers were Anmar Khaled ( Y-PEER IRAQ FPC ) and Suzan .
The training was in cooperation with UNFPA IRAQ and START organization.
In this photo we can see the youth from Jordan attending a peer
education session about debating skills , this was held on 29th of August
2014 . This session is very special as we can really look at the real meaning
of networking , this training was held by collaporation between Y-PEER
Jordan network , British Council and the Voice of Arab Youth .
While here in the second picture we can see the opening of a training
under the title of " Social responsibilities' of the companies " held on 11th
of September in Slovinia by the trainer Samar Elzakhlol .
National Forum of Y-PEER activists took place at 22-25th August in
Ust- Kamenogorsk city, Kazakhstan. In 3 days peer-educators together
with focal-points had a chance to discuss the main issues and struggles of
the Network, find solutions and create action plans for each region, revise
the ways of communication. Y-PEER in Kazakhstan actively working in four
different regions: Almaty, Chimkent, Ust-Kamenogorsk and Astana by forces of volunteers from different youth organizations. However, during the Forum they decided to gather their forces, exchange the experiences and lessons learned and communicate better for more effective networking. The Forum was supported by UNFPA.
For more information please follow the link below:
http://bit.ly/1rntxCd
10. Mombasa marking International Youth Day 2014
International Youth Day, which is marked every 12th of August,
attracted a lot of youths from different youth groups, Community
Base Organisations (CBOs) and NGOs in Mombasa. Youths had a
procession in the streets from treasury square garden to Mombasa
stadium to see the day successful
This yearâs theme was âYouth and mental healthâ,due to the high
Number of youth with mental health issues from various regions of
country, experiencing stigma and discrimination from the society
forgetting that they can live healthy lives without being stigmatized.
Speaking during the event, Hon. Senator Hassan Omar Sarai of
Mombasa County considered himself as a role model on how he
became successful at a very young age, as the chairman of Kenya
National Commission of Human Rights (KNHCR), lawyer and human rights
activist and expected fellow youth to learn from him. Furthermore, he urged
the youths to stop immoral behaviors that affect their physical and mental health and always
follow procedures whenever they want to articulate their issues or grievances.
Hon. Senator Hassan Omar Sarai of Mombasa county addressing youths during IYD 2014 (photo courtesy of hamadi kachwele)
However, youth representatives from Mombasa Activista, Action Aid Platform,
blamed the organizers of the event for not addressing issues on IYD theme and instead leaders from National and county government focusing more on politics and not giving youths a chance to articulate their problems on subject matter or given an opportunity to interact, share ideas as leaders listened to their problems through youth leaders.
Global dialogue Ceremony Kenya
The event which took place on 12th August brought together CSOs
from across Kenya and deliberated on matters affecting youth.
The education sector, religion and the society being conservative hinders
a lot in sexual education that leaves a lot unspoken,despite the young
peopleâs effort urge for this information.
Building a conducive environment for both parents and children to discuss sexuality issues
is seen awkward as most parents do not open up. Parents, teachers and children should all play
their parts to share sex education and children should demand for more information.
11. International Youth Week 2014 was launched at 12th August in the
Ministry of labor, migration and youth of Kyrgyzstan with a key message
âI am a human! Mental health is a right of everyone!â
The main goal of the week is decreasing cases of stigma and discrimination
of young people with mental disorders trough informational and educational
ampaigns. As one of the organizers of Youth week Y-PEER Kyrgyzstan together
with NGO âKyrgyz Indigoâ conducted several interactive events for girls
and women from psychological boarding of Jayil district, such as Forum-
theater play, dancing classes and different games. In addition, there was
a football tournament held to support young people with
mental disorders. Tournament was sponsored by the
commercial company âKumtorâ and organized by UNFPA and 8 football
teams were represented by international agencies, NGOs and private companies.
After very productive August Y-PEER volunteers continued their activities, and
at the first week of September they have launched new initiative in the framework
of âYouth for peaceful changesâ project, supported by UNFPA. There were several meetings and surveys organized in State University of Technologies, where students shared their opinions about gender issues and violence against women.
For more information, please follow the links below:
http://bit.ly/Y720sV
http://on.fb.me/1veYGZa
All Y-PEERians were very active on 12th of August, to mark the International Youth
Day 2014 Mental Health Matters. Here is some good news about, how Y-PEER
Moldova celebrated the International Youth Day:
Y-PEER members participated in an out-door press-conference organized by
Ministry of Youth and Sport and National Council of Youth.
The press conference ended The National Campaign âInvesting in Youth
Health which was implemented all around the country starting with July 11 till
August 12, 2014.
The National Campaign âInvesting in Youth Healthâ, Republic of Moldova, including Transnistrian region gathered a range of initiatives along with awarenessâraising activities of the peer-to-peer educators
Y-PEER in Nisporeni, Orhei, Ialoveni summer camps, flash-mob organized by the
Youth Media Center with the theme âHealthy T-Shirtâ, visits to Youth Friendly
Health Centers, discussions with volunteers in order to identify creative
message in promoting the healthcare services.
12. As a part of the Campaign, Moldova supported the #healthyselfie global initiative where young people, decision-makers and general public promoted the healthy lifestyle on the social media. The results of the Campaign were presented in the framework of the press-conference organized on the occasion of the International Youth Day.After the press-conference Y-PEER Moldova played
a football match with representatives of Ministry of Youth and Sport
and representatives of National Council of Youth. Unfortunately the Y-PEER team did not become winners, but they will try harder next year. The same day, 25 Y-PEER leaders participated in an
advocacy workshop, where elaborated an advocacy action plan for
Comprehensive Sexual Education in schools. During the sessions participants
learnt more about stakeholders and ways to approach them and evaluated the
network capacity for advocacy. Y-PEER Moldova intends to advocate for
Comprehensive Sexual Education in the upcoming years.
1st Saipal Inter College Futsal Cup To End #VAW and Girls "1st Inter College Futsal Cup was organized by Saipal college, Youth For Youth, Study Plus and other partner organisation from 3rd-5th September. 16 Teams from Different Colleges of Kathmandu Valley took part in the event with more than 1500 direct audience enjoyed the game as well as committed to responsible to Fight against any forms of Violence against women and Girls . Players and Audience among which majority were boys share that sports can be one of the area from where the #VAW message can be spread to all generations . Y-PEER Nepal and #UNiTECampaign was proud to be part of it . Game Coordination & Image Credits:- Roshan Chettri & Binod Chhetri .
A friendly futsal match organized in Kathmandu on August 8 ahead of International Youth Day 2014 (Aug 12). FNJ emerged victorious among 8 teams: Mental Health Network, Ministry of Youth and Sports, youth alliance of 10 political parties, Scouts,youth organizations, UN agencies and Y-PEER. A big thank you to all who participated in the event. 'Mental Health Matters' is the theme of the Day this year. Youth with mental
health conditions are often subject to stigma and discrimination.
Efforts are needed to overcome this stigma and discrimination to
ensure that young people with mental health conditions can lead full and healthy lives free of isolation and unnecessary shame, and that they openly seek the services and support they need.
13. Y-PEER Nepal is developing messages on End Violenece against women and girls for Orange Campaign to be disseminated widely in Sunsari, Saptari and Rautahat. Now Lets make it interesting for you...!!! Here's A CONTEST Develop messages on " End Violence Against Women and Girls" That can be on English or Nepali Target group : 12-15 yrs adolescents Teachers and Parents It will be best if you make the messages context specific to the district. or you can make it general as well. Top 15 messages will be awarded with interesting goodies from Y-PEER and UNFPA Nepal. Hurry up ..!!! Deadline is 24th September 2014 Inbox us or email the message on info@ypeernepal.org / nirmala@ypeernepal.org
See the link for details on previous orange campaign: http://on.fb.me/1oirw5T
14. UNFPA, together with the ministry of health of Sri Lanka organized a multi stakeholder meeting to finalize the first National policy and strategy of health of young persons,the main goal of the meeting being mainstreaming concerns
of health for young people and to improve their health. Y-PEER Sri Lanka Focal Points will be involved in the implementation process to make it successful. Source: https://www.facebook.com/ypeer.srilanka
âTaekwondo unites people in promoting gender equality!â
National Taekwondo and Kickboxing Federation (NTKF) of Tajikistan strengthens its initiatives within the UN Secretary Generalâs campaign âUNiTE to End Violence against Womenâ by involving
athletes, leaders, boys and girls to promotion of gender equality activities.
Hence, the major international sports event - the 11th Junior and 6th
Veteran ITF Taekwondo World Championships took place in Tajikistan in
early August and was used as a great opportunity to spread the messages
about gender equality, youth empowerment and healthy lifestyle. Notably,
Tajikistan for the first time hosted such a high level sport event which gathered more than 700 representatives and athletes from 52 countries.
Thanks to the longstanding extensive advocacy and activism of NTKF all events were conducted under the motto âSay NO to gender violenceâ. Remarkably, NTKF has been collaborating with the UNCT in Tajikistan and UNFPA in particular on the issues of gender equality and youth since 2008. Prior to the championship, volunteers of the national Y-PEER network in Tajikistan and National Volunteersâ Association learnt basics of teamwork and how to resolve conflict situations.
NTKF athletes participated the training supported by UNFPA on Reproductive Health, Gender discrimination; Gender based violence, promotion of positive male role models among men and boys, advocacy for social mobilization of communities and other relevant topics.
International Youth Day Celebration in Dushanbe
This year the IYD commemoration in Tajikistan was fully led by young people and consisted of two events:
- cultural event for youth and official event for the public and third traditional annual fair under the motto âVolunteerism as career ladderâ. Both events were led by Y-PEER Tajikistan on August 10-12, where young people demonstrated their skills and knowledge, conducted information sessions on mental health and SRH issues, organized flash-mobs, discussion
clubs and master- classes.
15. The eents were organized with support of WHO, UNV, UNHCR, UNAIDS, IOM, UNFPA, Serena Dushanbe Hotel, VSO, Ismaili Center of Dushanbe and other national partners. IYD commemoration was fully supported by the Committee of Youth, Sports and Tourism under the Government of Tajikistan. For more information, please visit: http://on.fb.me/1qwGmVH
As a part of International Youth Day Celebration UNFPA Uzbekistan together with PEER Educational Recourse initiated the âOrange Selfieâ Campaign. A lot of young people took part in the Campaign posting their selfies in Facebook with the message: âI am for investments in youth!â. The winners were announced on the official UNFPAâs page and got the souvenirs from organizers. Beside this, Activists of youth networks âHealthy Youthâ and
âDiligent Youthâ supported by UNFPA and Womenâs Committee
have come up with a number of activities to make young
peopleâs voices heard.The celebrations included annual
awarding ceremony for most active and talented youth, and a
charity concert by local groups. In particular, most active
representatives of âDiligent Youthâ network from the countryâs
11 regions were awarded, as well as girls who demonstrated good results in sports competitions held with support of Womenâs Committee. Other partners working in the area of youth involvement also took part in the dayâs events. In particular, UNDPâs âSocial Innovations and Volunteerism in Uzbekistanâ project has presented its initiatives aimed at encouraging young peopleâs participation in socio-economic development of the country.
UNFPA and Womenâs Committee have been working together throughout the years,
on promoting healthy lifestyle among the young people in Uzbekistan.
Both partners share similar visions on strengthening the rights of young people
and enhancing their potential to increase their role in society.
After the colorful celebration of Youth Day two National Trainings (TBT and
ToT) for the first time took place in Khiva and Andijan cities in August â
September 2014. Young people had a chance to learn about HIV/STI
prevention, successful preparation for trainings, theatre methods in education.
However they even made a short video-clip âHappy Khivaâ as a part of global âHappyâ campaign. Both trainings were supported by UNFPA and Womenâs Committee of Uzbekistan.
(On the photo: Nigina Kadirova, Doston Kholosboev, Feruz Rustamov, Sevara Khamidova - the winners of Orange Selfie Contest)
More information you can find here:
https://www.facebook.com/SoglomYoshlar?fref=ts
https://www.facebook.com/UNFPA.Uzbekistan?fref=ts
http://unfpa.uz/en/news/2014/318/