Fourth UNESCO-ACEID International Conference SECONDARY...

Fourth UNESCO-ACEID International Conference

SECONDARY EDUCATION AND YOUTH AT THE CROSSROADS

Bangkok, Thailand, 1 O-l 3 November 1998

PANEL PRESENTERS’ PAPERS

Panel I YOUTH: THE SITUATION AND THE CHALLENGES

1.1 Keynote Dr. Srisak Thaiarry

National Council for Child and Youth Development

Thailand

Youth Perspectives of the New Millennium : Challenges Beyond 2000

Srisak Thaiany

THE WORLD : NOW AND BEYOND 2000

The rapid process of global changes and development has resulted in an increasingly complex and sophisticated society which in several instances, is unable to cope with itself. If we are unprepared, we will be overwhelmed by the tide of changes and will be helplessly swept along, tumbled and smashed against the rocks. But if we determine to be strong and well equipped, -we will not only be able to stand firm against the currents, but to direct them and be the architect of our own destiny.

Peter Drucker, the eminent social theorist suggested in 1993 that most of the nations and people of the world are living through the shift from an industrial age to the knowledge era when the creation, application and dissemination of knowledge rather than the production of manufactured goods or agriculture will become the centre defining activity of modern society : the transformation which will reach its peak in the 2 1” century. He also pointed out that this new age holds immense promise to empower human being, to bring democracy to the globe and the workplace, and to create a sustainable relationship with the environment - if only we are able to control the turbulent social dislocations which come as a price that we have to pay for this major transformation.

Srisak Thaiarry : Executive Director, National Council for Child and Youth Development, Thailand Immediate Past Deputy President, Asian Youth Council Chairperson, Child Rights ASIANET

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This paper represents an effort to outline some major global changes which have significant impact upon the present young generation; and to introduce issues related to their preparation to be able to rise above the tides and actively participate in the formulation of the new world order.

The Aging of the World’s Population

The decline in fertility and in mortality rates during the period between 1950 to 2000 is adding 20 years to average life span of the world population. The explicit implication is that the world is getting older in the 2 1 st century. This phenomenon is manifested by the United Nations through several projected figures : l Major growth of the world’s older population - from half a billion people

in 1990 to almost 1.5 billion people in 2050 will be in developing countries, particularly in Asia.

l By 2025, 72 percent of the world’s older persons, about 858 million of them, will be living in developing countries.

l By 2030 more than three quarters of the world’s older people will live in industrial regions- more than half in Asia and more than a quarter in China alone.

l By 2025 the majority of world’s women over age 80 will live in developing regions.

Since the demographic transition is proceeding more rapidly in developing countries, they will be particularly challenged to develop policies for the aging population to ensure adequate income, housing and health care, as well as the participation and independence of older persons. Major resources will have to be allocated and the already half empty coffers will have very little left for others, especially for youth. On the other hand, as there will be more burden of elderly care in family with less resources, more neglect and abuse of the elderly will occur.

The Economic Crisis - The Boom and the Burst

Before the turning of the century, Asia’s strong and healthy economic Tigers became thin, sickly and hungry Cats. And the situation keeps expanding into world recession. When things were on the bright side, materialism and consumerism reigned the days. Excessive and uncontrolled credit growth resulted in excess industrial capacity, private and government overspending,

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crony capitalism, insufficient transparency, stock-market and real estate bubbles and rapid debt accumulation.

At individual level, people became careless in spending and borrowing; took financial risk uncautiously and depended on “money power” as the garantee of their social status and their privileges. Inevitably, young people have absorbed these values from adults and the society in which they live.

Then came the crisis - unprecedented in its intensity and speed. Suddenly, the financial system collapses : bankruptcy is everywhere _ Million of people are out of work and extreme poverty is rapidly on the rise.

The breakdown of macro economic system has immense impact upon the whole society. At individual level, being unemployed or bankrupted means decrease or loss of income of the family. Those who were already in debt during the economic boom are unable to pay back what they owe. To make it worse, goods become more expensive and people have to pay more. A great number of families will be deprived of even the basic necessities. Millions of those that migrated to work in cities have to return to their rural homes. Their children have to be out of school and work to bring in additional income.

The govermnent, lacking of budget, will have to tighten the belt, and normally, welfare and NGO subsidy become the first targets for budget cut. As a result, there are decrease in support for the disadvantaged and decrease in NGO services. The inability to respond to the pressing needs and serious problems is apparent.

If no interventions are carried out in time, situation will become extremely difficult and to a certain extent, irreversible in the next century. The picture is frightening : more family disintegration and violence; decline in peoples’ physical and mental health; more children and youth neglected and deprived of development; rapid increase in drugs, crime, HIV/AIDS; rural communities unable to absorb returnees; food and resources shortage ; and much more.

And finally, at national level, there will be paralysis of government services system; breakdown of social welfare system; social disintegration and unrest; increase in exploitation of the disadvantaged which will force them to unite to demand for their rights and welfare services ; and the people will inevitably turn against the authority.

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The Excess, Uncontrollable Development of Information Technoloev

Since the past decade, the world has experienced an explosion of information technology. News, data, information, books, movies, music, commercial advertisement, arts, to name a few, can reach almost everywhere on the globe in no time at all. The world gets much smaller through telephones and satellites, the Internet and websites. This instant and almost unlimited access to information is wonde&l for those who can take advantage of the best of what is available.

However, with the wealth of knowledge and entertainment, the media also brings violence, sex and materialism into our homes. There are instances when news or talk shows sound like pornography, sports pages in newspapers read like crime and fraud sheets, the movies explode with gang wars and killings, and the Internet advertises young girls for sale.

Things will get much more complex in the next few years when the merge of different forms of information processing will produce a “Pervasive Knowledge Network”. In the next decade alone, 1,700 new communication satellites are scheduled to be launched-ten times the numbers already in space at present. They will be carrying television, wireless telephone and Internet signals that will enable people to have access to voice or video communication, the Internet or other networked computer systems, and to immense variety of entertainment options anytime and anywhere on earth by as early as the year 2005 or before. This powerful and pervasive new networks of information will have great impact upon people’s life style, their moral concepts, and their cultural heritage. And in this new era of information, more attention will be paid on the news about the individuals or the events than to the individuals or the events themselves; thus creating superficial and exaggerated images of the “real thing”.

Severe Decline in Moral and Ethical Standards

The world’s environment has gone toxic both ecologically and culturally. There has been a shift from a supportive culture where people care and help each other to a hostile culture which is deliberately competitive and assultive. People are more selfish and ready to make use of others for their own benefits. The disadvantaged will become increasingly abused and exploited. There is a decline of close-knitted family, neighborhood and community. Thus, individuals become more isolated and mutual trust is rapidly eroding.

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Everyday’s nonstop flow of crude violence, sexuality, crime and misconducts in the society; some of them performed by leading figures with no remorse or punishment will continue to dominate our society. And the everyday - easily accessible information of these vices offer evil examples which are followed unashamedly by a great number of adults and youth alike.

The lure of material force put a strain on family economy. Too busy seeking money to satis@ its physical needs, the family seldom have quality time together. Family disintegration will thus become one of the most serious problems in many parts of the world in the next century

YOUTH : THEIR PRESENT AND THEIR FUTURE

Amid this great global transformation, where do youth stand? What will they become? Will they be helplessly swept by the tides and crushed against the rocks? Or, will they ride the currents and be able to direct the course of the new millennium?

Youth as Victims of Social Changes

Being young and inexperienced, youth are traditionally considered one of the most vulnerable groups suffering from any major social transformation. At the turn of the century, youth will be in more difficult circumstances since they will have less access to the already minimal resources available for social development; a bigger proportion of which will be allocated to the increasing number of old people. In more families, youth will be given the burden of elderly care; and at the same time, more older people will have problems disciplining young family members who are thrusted in their care.

The slow and difficult economic recovery process will continue to exploit youth in labour force; keep many more of them &om school; put them in intensified dilemma of drug abuse, sexual abuse, violence, crime and HIV/AIDS; trafflck more of them across borders for economic and sexual purposes; deprive them from proper physical, mental and intellectual development, etc.

The deluge of information will throw them out of balance : being unprepared and untrained, they will not be able to selectively consume the media for their own benefits, but will absorb everyday vices through the enormously accessible information which are out there. They will become “artificially

sophisticated”. In the meantime efforts and mechanisms to control the excessive stream of information are so inadequate, especially those that will limit youth’s access to offensive materials through the media. Although there are a few good, youth - friendly programs and information, their future existence are not secured because of the uncertainly of financial support since they are commercially unattractive. Worse of all, there are instances when youth become victims to media exploitation through pornography, sexual related or unethical commercial advertisements; and in some cases, exposed to criminal seduction through chartrooms in the Internet. The legal process to cope with these problems is utterly inadequate.

The moral and ethical toxic environment will leave no room for youth to have good role model to look up to. A great number of parents are at a loss in their struggle to raise good kids in troubling times, and the family will not get the help and support they need. In many instances more youth will be left at home alone, unattended and unsupervised; where as in others, family disintegration will force more of them to look for love and care elsewhere - with friends, on the streets, in drugs, etc.

Youth as Self-Reliant Individuals

It is hopeful that all youth will not become victims to this social transformation. Evidents have proved that some youth fair better in such situation than others. However, the challenges are the opportunities that should be offered to them to develop holistically and to become productive family members. With these opportunities, they will possess enough calibre to deal with the increasingly complex challenges. And it also needs strong parental guidance, loving family atmosphere, adequate knowledge and analytical thinking as well as good role models or mentors to guide them.

Youth as Leaders of the New World Order

The strength of youth of the year 2000 and beyond will depend to a great extent on the proper balance between physical and technological development and moral and spiritual development. It is not enough for them to become resilient to changes but they should take an active involvement in the mainstream of this process. They must make themselves a positive force which recognize and understand the phenomenon and be able to conceptualize the overall integrated - sustainable - comprehensive path for the development of the 2 1” century. Further more, they must be prepared to walk that path and lead the way. Nevertheless, many obstacles still make it diflicult for

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them to do so. Adult’s negative attitude towards youth’s role results in token rather than meaningful participation of youth with limit opportunity for them to initiate and act. Their own lack or insufficient experiences and self confidence is seen by adults as condition for excluding youth from a great deal of community initiatives and social development activities.

YOUTH EMPOWERMENT

To expect youth to play a leadership role in shaping the future, one must take into account that they must be fully prepared physically, mentally and intellectually.

First of all, mechanisms have to be established to help those who become victims to social changes. These include mainstreaming youth in social development policies, plans and programs so that resources will be more available for their assistance and development ; providing access of youth to national economic revival packages and social initiatives at local and community levels; enhancing the functions of three most important institutions : family, church, school in youth development and the protection of their rights ; and finally, legal and social control of bad media and promotion and support for good programs and information for youth.

In order to become resilient, youth need to be provided with knowledge and experiences in life : analytical and decision-making skills in order that they will be able to know how to have access to information, select those that are useful to them, analyze the situations and make proper decisions about their own present and future actions. They have to be provided with inter- disciplinary, inter-secterial development programs so that they can be holistically and appropriately developed. They also need career development counselling and training to prepare themselves before they enter career world. With this preparation, youth will not fall victims to changes and be able to become self-reliant.

Recognition and acceptance of youth’s potential is the key to youth participation. AfErmative actions have to be carried out for the promotion of youth’s rights to be heard, to take part in decisions that affect their lives, to form groups among themselves, and to contribute meaningfully to their society. If this concept is embraced by adults, promotion and support of leadership and social development training, encouragement and support for youth’s involvement in social processes as well as youth group’s activities

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can be made possible. And only when these happen, youth will be given real opportunity to participate in directing the course of this major social change.

EDUCATION AND YOUTH EMPOWERMENT

To enable youth to be prepared for this global transformation affecting our society, education now and beyond the year 2000 must be totally liberal as well as holistic ; accessible to all as well as suitable for individual conditions. It must extend far beyond the school boundary into the home, the church and the cyberspace. It has to create intellectual and moral enrichment and at the same time, offer practical knowledge and skills catering to youth’s needs to survive, develop, socialize and lead. It can never again be education for education sake.

Schools must open themselves to external organization / community / parents / youth participation in their education process ; and must make use of the available resources and information in designing their locally-adapted but future-oriented curriculum. They must be constantly alert of the changing situation, recognize its possible impact on youth and develop effective educational activities to deal with it.

There is a wealth of knowledge, information and data which youth can derive from the extremely advanced information technology. Internet and websites can broaden youth’s views and give them quality entertainment at the same time. Thus, most affordable schools have incorporated computer usage into their curriculum. However, training youth to operate the machines alone is not enough. They have to learn to be selective and to make use of the appropriately chosen information and data for their own benefits. The teachers themselves must also be trained to provide guidance to their students in this process. At home, computer-own parents should also be interested in their youth’s well-being in cyberspace and recommend and procure usefirl programs for them as well as monitor, screen and block access to harmful material.

Religion also has a significant impact in moral and ethical enhancement of youth, giving them the fundamental concepts of proper social norms, and the value of life and the purpose of living. These are the solid base for self- development and social and political interactions of youth, and inspiration for their future course. However, it is regretable that at present, religious institutions have not been as actively involved in youth development as in the past. Their role has to be revived and their functions modernized so that they

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can act as attractive and efficient mental base for youth, providing them with moral support and encouragement as well as ethical and practical advices for their way of life, their social interactions and their civil responsibilities.

Learning from wise, richly experienced old family members provides youth with profound insights of the facts of life and the wisdom of traditional and cultural heritage which are the essential factors for their intellectual and spiritual maturity. Programs and activities at national and local levels should be developed to allow positive interactions between youth and their elderly aiming as mutual care giving, transfer of knowledge and experiences and the enhancement of cross-generation participation in decision-making process.

PARTNERSHIP IN YOUTH EMPOWERMENT

In empowering youth, collective efforts of all social sectors is essential. Commitment of government agencies, the business sector the media, the academia as well as civil society groups must be secured and sustained. Then, this must be effectively transformed into policies, plans, budget allocations, and youth empowerment programs with multi-sectorial cooperation and coordination including youth leaders and youth groups / organizations themselves. The programs must use participatory approach aiming at maximum involvement of the grassroot : family, church, school and other community groups. They must also consist of integrated activities which are area-oriented e.g. provincial / local level youth development programs. This will allow holistic impact as well as crystalization of responses to local situation.

In fillfilling the aspiration of youth empowerment through programs and activities, it is extremely vital that network mechanism be in place. This mechanism helps enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of program implementation by drawing on the strength of each of the network members :

0 Academic institutions l enhancement of knowledge l development of information / data system l research and study findings l evaluation, lessons-learned, and development of reporting

system

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0

0

l

l Business sector

0 Grassroot groups l pro-active dimension of development - strangthening of

family and community

Government agencies l realization of concepts, directions, policies l replication and scale of effective pilot projects l facilitation of program operation l exchange of knowledge, skills and experiences l collaboration in situation analysis

Non-government organizations / civil service resource organiations l resource mobilization / allocation l exchange of knowledge, skills and experiences l situation analysis in collaboration with other sectors l advocacy / campaign on sensitive, serious, urgent issues l mobilization of inter organization collaboration, referral,

consultancy and technical assistance l development of guidelines / models from lessons-learned

and pilot project experiences

Foreign / international agencies l financial and technical support l exchange of concepts, experiences, information l regional md international perspectives of situation l globalization of issues / practices

l mobilization of corporate funds for social causes l technical assistance, especially in management, social

marketing and innovative approaches l collaboration in prevention of social problems l balance between economic and social sectors

l reaching the target groups l attacking the roots of problems l prevention of problems l development of community learning experiences

from actual situation leading to self-sufficiency

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0 Media l information dissemination and public relations of programs

and action l public awareness building l advocacy for social / people participation l development of good / suitable materials

l Youth groups l realistic picture of situation and needs l peer-to peer approach program strategy l initiation and action for self development and social

development l analysis and development of new paradigm essential for

positive social changes

SUSTAINABLE YOUTH EMPOWERMENT

The most important factor for the sustainability of youth empowerment process is the mutual commitment of all. This include the understanding and acceptance of youth strength and weaknesses; the recognition of their potentials and their role in society, their significance in national revival and progress; as well as the necessity to empower them to be able to fi~lly participate in the processes.

Then, permanent structures should be established at all levels for the commitment to be realized; both the structures facilitating and providing services for youth empowerment e.g. youth agenda, policies and plans, and youth ministries, departments; and the structures allowing them to become pro-active e.g. youth groups, youth councils at local, national, regional and international levels.

These structures have to be well equipped, efficient, and possess adequate autonomy and authority together with good governance and clear vision and mission for and with active participation of youth. Efficient monitoring process is also essential in order to garantee that youth’s participation is promoted for the benefits of young people and not to be abused by vested political interest.

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Capacity building of youth groups also helps sustain the movement. These groups need constant support in order to continue their activities and at the same time, training in the aspects of organizational and impact sustainability in order that they can become self-sufficient and their activities can be sustained and expanded. They also need to constantly develop “new blood” to replace the former members that will have to leave the groups when they grow older and have to attend to other matters elsewhere.

And finally, systematic promotion of youth participation and empowerment is essential. There is a need for related governmental, non-governmental organizations, or even the business and media sectors to come to a clearer understanding of youth participation right and their own role in the promotion of the issue. A comprehensive long - term plan for the promotion of youth participation and empowerment should be formulated to enhance the process at international, regional, natural and local levels, with the involvement of all social sectors.






1.2 Health Issues and Concerns

Steven Kraus UNAIDS

Secretariat

UNAIOS

Steering Committee

UNAIOS and co-sponsor:

UNICEF

UNDP

UNFPA

UNESCO

WHO

WORLD BANK

Ofhen:

Pssochtion Franqois-Xavier Eagnouc

Education lnternationa

International Fedemth of Red Cross and Ret

Crescent Societie:

MlV lntemationa

Rotary lntemationa

‘Norid Assembly of Youd

FORCE FQR OAN~E World AIBS Campaign with YQ unq Pectple

The Fourth UNESCO-ACEID International Conference

“Secondary Education and Youth at the Crossroads”, Bangkok, Thailand,

IO-13 November 1998

Steve Kfaus Progrzimme & External Relations Adviser

UNAIDS Asia Pacific Intercountry Team Third floor, B Block

United Nations Building Rajadamnem Nok Avenue Bangkok 10200, Thailand Telephone: 66-2-2681272

Fax: 66-2-2881092 E-mail: [email protected]

1998 World AIDS Campaign Briefing Paper

Force for Change: World AIDS Campaign with Young People

Pages

Young people in the shadow of AIDS ...................................................... 2

Lack of access to youth-friendly health services .................................................... 3

Young women’s vulnerability ...................................................................... 3

Abuse and exploitation ............................................................................ 4

Life on the margins ................................................................................ s

Drugs, sex and HIV/AIDS .......................................................................... s

Special needs of young people living with or affected by HIV/AIDS ................................ 6

Support from the adult world ............................................................... Adults to trust and talk to ..........................................................................

Young people: a force for change .........................................................

What young people’s participation can achieve ......................................... The Asian Red Cross and Red Crescent AIDS Task Force (ART) .....................................

Youth-friendly health services, Lusaka, Zambia ....................................................

Joma/ Radical, Brasilia, Brazil .....................................................................

Clear Skies Project, Doi Saket, Thailand ...........................................................

The Campaign’s main objectives ............................................................

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9

10

10

10

11

11

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Boxes:

Why a campaign with young peoble? .............................................................. 2

Important human rights in the AK& era ............................................................ 3

Boys, risk and vulnerability ........................................................................ 4

Some help for young dmg injectors ................................................................ 5

Sexual health education translates into lower risk .................................................. 8

Important life-skills in the HIV/AIDS era ........................................................... 10

Yo&e:oeooledemandasav ....................................................................... 12

/ 1998 World AIDS Campaign Briefing Paper i

“We strongly believe that our energy, idealism and commitment can be used to stop the further spread of the AIDS epidemic that is devastating the social and economic fabric of our own countries.” - delegation of

young people fo the 1993 International Conference on STD/AIDS in Africa, Marrakech

Of the 30 million people alive today with HIV infection or AIDS, at least a third are young people aged 10-24. Every day, 7000 young people worldwide acquire the virus. This means around 2.6 million new infections a year among young people, including 1.7 million in Africa and 700 000 in Asia and the Pacific. Overall, young people account for at least 50% of all those who become infected after infancy, and in some countries the figure exceeds 60%.

To some extent, these high infection rates reflect the

preponderance of young people in the world. The global population is young, and increasingly so. Between 1960 and 1990, when the world population grew by 75%. the proportion of young people increased by 99%: Of the world’s young people, 85% live in developing countries, and this is where over nine-tenths of the epidemic is now concentrated.

But population percentages tell only part of the story. There are special reasons why young people are specially exposed to infection with what is above all a sexually

Why a campaign with young people? UNAIDS and its partners have choseq to carry out its 1998 World AIDS Campaign for and with young people - for three reasons.

One is the special vulnerability of young people to the epidemic. Of all those infected aiter infancy, at least half are young people under 25.

Another reason is that young people aged 1 O-24 account for more than 30% of all-people in the developing world, where the epidemic is concentrated. If H/V prevention in this huge youthful population fails, developing countries will have to face the staggering human and economic costs of vast numbers of adult AIDS cases.

Most important, working with young people makes sense because they are a force for change. They are still at the stage of experimentation and can learn more easily than adults to make their behavioursafe or to adopt safe practices from the start. But the role of young people does not stop there. They can help take the sting and shame out ofAIDS where it is still srigmatized; they can bring kindness and practical help to those already infected with HIV or living in a household touched by AIDS. If they get support from the adults in their lives and irom society at large, young people can change the course of the epidemic.

transmitted virus. One is that adolescence and youth are times of discovery, emerging feelings and the exploration of new behaviour and relationships. Sexual behaviour, an important part of this, can involve risks; the same is true of experimentation with drugs, legal and illegal. At the same time, young people get mixed messages. They are often faced with double standards calling for virginity in girls but early and active sexual behaviour in boys. They are confronted with media images of sex, smoking and drinking as glamorous and risk- free. They are told to be abstinent, but exposed to a barrage of advertisements using sex to sell goods. Youth-friendly information - information that keeps the realities of young people in mind - is often lacking. Compounding the challenge, in the name of morality, culture or religion young people are often denied their right to education about the health risks of sexual and other risk behaviour, and to important tools and services for protection.

Among the world’s young people, some are more exposed to HIV than others. Those living in what UNICEF terms “especially difficult circumstances” include young people who are out of school, who live on the streets, who share needles with other injecting drug users, engage in commercial sex, or are sexually and physically abused. Young


men who have sex with men are disadvantaged by the lack of information and services available to them and directed to their needs.

What most of these situations have in common is lack of respect for young people’s basic rights (see box), which leaves them vulnerable to infection with HIV.

The results of this potent mix of risk and vulnerability show up in country statistics. In Zimbabwe, 30% of pregnant 15-l 9-year-olds attending antenatal clinics were found to be infected with HIV. HIV rates in pregnant women under age 20 in Maharashtra, India, where the epidemic is far more recent, rose from 2.3% to 3.5% between 1994 and 1996.

Worldwide, new infections in young people occur at the rate of five per minute.

Lack of access to youth-friendly health services

An important indicator of the scale of unprotected sex*, and hence of potential exposure to HIV, is the incidence of other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) such as gonorrhoea, chancroid and herpes. Around half of the 333 million new STD cases per year are in young people under 25.

Research shows that having an untreated STD greatly increases an individual’s risk of getting or passing on HIV to his or her sex partner. Fortunately, most STDs can be cured with antibiotics. But,

Important human rights in the AIDS era Like adults over 25, young people have a right to information, life-skills (see box on page 10) and services that enable them to pro&ct themselves against HIV/AIDS. They have a right to freedom from coerced sex, rape and other forms of exploitation. More broadly, young people have a right to develop in a supportive environment, with the solid backing of caring adults in their family, school and community. They have a right to education, skills, employment, health, confidentiality, and protection from discrimination, including discrimination on the grounds of HIV status, sexual practice, sex and age.

Research shows that these rights help protect health and development. Conversely, when they are not respected and promoted young people become vulnerable - that is, they have little or no control over their HIV/ AIDS-related risks. Vulnerability can be created by violations of the rights to education; health care, participation, and safety, among others.

This is why action to prevent HIV infection must extend “beyond AIDS” to the broad social and economic rights that protect young people’s health and development. This means grounding policies and programmes in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women.

even where health services are available not too far away, young people have less access to them than adults do. Young people are more reluctant to seek treatment for fear of being found out, or IY ecause the services are tnwelcoming and unattractive; they are less inclined or able to pay; and they run a greater risk of being treated with disdain or turned away altogether.

-More generally, young people find it difficult to reach youth-friendly services where they can discuss questions related to sexual health or sexuality or drug use, or obtain condoms and other protective devices. Counselling is rarely available, and family planning clinics are often restricted to married women and couples. Even when health care

use wifhouf a male or iemale condom.

providers are willing to receive them, young people are reluctant to talk openly, either out of embarrassment or because they worry that confidentiality will not be respected.

Young women’s vulnerability

If HIV infection rates among 13:9-year-old girls are often higher than in teenage boys-the difference in Uganda, for instance, is as big as three-fold, according to estimates by the Medical Research Council Programme on AIDS in Uganda - the reason lies in their greater biological and social vulnerability. Compared with males, the female reproductive tract is more susceptible to

i 1998 World AIDS Campaign Briefing Paper ;

infection with HIV and other ST&, a susceptibility that is particularly great in young girls. And girls often run this biological risk very early. In a study conducted for the International Center for Research on Women, a quarter of adolescent girls in Brazil reported having first experienced sex before age 13; in Malawi the mean age was 13.6 years; and in Papua New Guinea first intercourse occurred as early as age 11.

Compounding the biological vulnerability of girls are complex and unhealthy gender expectations which mean that young women have less control over their lives and bodies than their male counterparts, and that boys and young men are tacitly or openly encouraged to adopt aggressive, even predatory sexual behaviour.

The reasons for unwanted sex range from social pressure - girls often have sex because refusing would mean ending a relationship - through coercion by older men in authority (e.g. schoolteachers) to outright violence. Young girls are often targeted because they are believed “safe” and uninfected with HIV. Rape, reported from every continent, has become lethal with the advent of HIV.

Unwanted pregnancies can be seen as an indicator of sex over which women have little control. A study in Jamaica found that 47% of girls under 20 had had a pregnancy, and that over four- fifths of those pregnancies were unwanted. In Tanzania, according to a publication in the Strategies for Hope series, 71% of patients admitted to hospital for abortion complications were teenage girls.

Boys, risk and vulnerability In the era of HIV/AIDS, boys raised with certain expectations of “masculine behaviour” can contri

f te to the vulnerability of their

female sex partners and put thems ves at risk at the same time. To complement the traditional focus on ‘girls, WHO is launching a project aimed at reducing unsafe sex, sexual abuse and violence through work with boys. In the first instance, rhe project will try to identify successful approaches already being used with male adolescents. In the second phase, strategies will be developed to improve the quality of work with adolescent boys and to expand the scale of successful programmes.

In many cases, a girl’s first sexual experience is forced. More than half the young women in a Malawi study reported coercion; over 20% of young women surveyed in Nigeria reported being forced to. have sex; in Papua New Guinea over half the young women questioned said they had been coerced, often violently.

Abuse and exploitation

Girls, and boys as well, can be infected through sexual abuse by relatives, family friends, teachers and strangers. Girls and young women in domestic service, often exploited for their labour, are especially vulnerable to sexual abuse by males in the

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CC I have several teenagers I’m counselling. [One HIV- positive 13-year-old] got hounded out of school because she was raped, she was raped by quite a well- known figure where she lives. The kids got to know about it because she ran to the police station - the guy died before he got to court. She ended up Ward 12 suicidal; she said ‘I didn’t know anything. I didn’t know what he was going to do. I didn’ t know about sex. V

Woman social worker, southern Africa

employefs family. Young boys serving as apprentices in the construction trade or helpers on long-haul trucks are sometimes abused by the older men.

Forced prostitution is

another form of abuse and exploitation known to fuel the HIV epidemic. Around 30% of I 3-1 g-year-old sex workers (some of whom were forced into prostitution) in Cambodia are infected, and even higher rates have been reported from elsewhere.

Many thousands of girls, but also boys, enter the sex trade every year. In Myanmar, a national HIV survey reported in 1994 found higher HIV prevalence rates in young women than young men and ascribed this to the demand for very young girls in the sex industry, primarily across the border in Thailand. Some farm families take their daughters out of the fields at age 12 or 13 as field work might ruin their main asset for the sex trade - beauty.

Force for Chanqe: World AIDS Campaiqn with Younq People

While many young people are abducted or sold into the sex industry by parents, relatives or family friends, some are coerced simply by circumstances. Poverty is a key factor, though the commercial sex trade also has links with growing consumerism, violence and crime.

Life on the margins Children and adolescents

who work or live on the streets sometimes engage in an informal trade of sex for money, protection, a meal or a place to sleep. HIV has now been added to the panoply of risks and dangers they face daily, including violence and abuse at the hands of other street kids or adults and authority figures.

Like street children and those in the sex trade, many other young people live on the margins of society in especially difficult circumstances. These include young residents of urban slums or remote rural areas, refugees, and migrants. Reaching these groups with AIDS education is a major challenge. Many are poor, have little access to education and so cannot read and write, may not know the language of the country they are living in, and have little control over the circumstances of their lives.

Another group of young people who tend to be marginalized, and who may be exposed to a high risk of infection because of their sexual practices, are young men who have sex with men. (Young lesbian women are also marginalized but their same- sex practices are thought to expose them to little HIV risk.)

Especially in developing countries, these young people are ignored in youth programmes which tend to assume that all sex is heterosexual -despite evidence that same-sex relations occur around the world, even in societies with the strictest taboos against them. Because this kind of sexuality is misunderstood and stigmatized, essential educational messages about AIDS prevection fail to be targeted at this group.

Drugs, sex and HIV/AIDS Young people who inject

drugs are exposed to high HIV risks if they share needles. In a number of Eastern European countries, crumbling health and social service infrastructures combined with high unemployment are contributing to a sense of hopelessness about the future among some young people. Drug injecting with shared needles is reaching explosive levels in cities such as Mykolayev attd Odessa. Not surprisingly, HIV rates are skyrocketing as a result As the world has seen repeatedly in cities from New York to Bangkok, Geneva and Santos

(Brazil), once the virus finds its way into a population of drug injectors the spread is explosive. In Manipur, India, the proportion of young drug injectors (median age: 25) infected with HIV zoomed from virtually zero in 1989 to 56% within six months, and to over 67% by 1992.

In the Newly Independent States, as in much of Asia and the Americas, young people engaged in unsafe drug injecting often get little or no counselling, support for stopping substance use, or practical help in switching to less harmful forms of drug use. Discrimination against them magnifies their vulnerability.

Apart from the HIV risk connected with needle-sharing, it is known that alcohol and other drugs can affect sexual behaviour and increase young people’s vulnerability to HIV. Excessive drinking, for example, diminishes inhibitions and impairs the ability to use important information that has been learnt about AIDS prevention and to make dqisions about protection.

I Some help for young drug injectors As part of the Programme of Youth Development in Odessa, which UNICEF is helping to implement, a project for HIV/AIDSprevention and ham reducrion in injecting drug users has reached the pilot stage. Three outreach posts have been set up where fomrer injecting drug users provide current users with medical aid, counselling and new syringes. An estimated ZOO drug injectors visit these posts daily. These and orher youngpeople in Odessa can also benefit from the Youth-Friendly Clinics project, where they can get confidenGa/, free or inexpensive general medical assistance and counselling as well as consulradons with gynaecologists, psychologists and STD specialists.

I 1998 World AIDS Campaign Briefing Paper ,

Special needs of young people living with or affected by HIV/AIDS

Like older HIV-positive adults, young people living with HIV infection require increasing health care as their immune system weakens and their health declines. However, they may face special obstacles in exercising their right to health. Young people may be too poor to buy care, or too afraid of disclosure by health providers who might not respect their confidentiality. The absence of youth-friendly services is an obstacle.

Even before reaching this stage, young people who know they are HIV positive may find it particularly difficult to reconcile themselves to being infected so early in life. It may be harder for them to deal with feelings of anger and confusion about their sex life and the risk of infecting others. Even where HIV/AIDS support

groups exist, there may be none specifically geared to the needs of people their own age.

Young people with HIV infection, as well as those whose relatives are living with or have died of AIDS, may be teased, thrown out of school, or deprived of the company of their friends because the parents of the latter forbid all contact.

Whether infected or affected, young people are probably less well equipped than their older counterparts to confront discrimination, including the painful experience of being rejected by their age peers. They may be more ignorant of their specific rights, including the right to non-discrimination in education and employment, and have little access to lawyers or other advocates to fight on their behalf. Overshadowing all are the economic hardships they endure. All too often, initiatives by extended families and communities to ensure that young people are cared for, educated and

employed receive inadequate backing from governments.

As these examples show, action in favour of protecting young people from AIDS cannot focus only on individual behaviour. It must also focus on protecting their human rights so that they can ward off HIV and cope with the burden of AIDS. The goal is to transform the setting in which they live into a supportive environment in which they will have more control over their lives, including their HIV/AIDS risks.

CC I go about telling people of my status. Some will actually not believe, but some will just feel pity, or they mock me, or they accuse me of being promiscuous. But this sexual act that left me HIV positive was only my second. 79

Young man from Zimbabwe


With the world’s power and resources concentrated in adult hands, the onus for AIDS action is on adults - as individuals, groups and governments.

In many industrialired countries and some developing countries, governments and NGOs together have risen to this challenge with considerable success. Through a combination of media campaigns, sexual health education on AIDS for those attending school (see box on page 8) and those out of school, the provision of condoms and other prevention services, and the establishment of supportive policies, countries ranging from Australia to Uganda have helped young people adopt safer sexual behaviour, live in more supportive environments, and experience lower HIV infection rates.

In Thailand, sustained prevention efforts were aimed at increasing condom use, boosting respect for women, discouraging men from visiting sex workers, and offering young women better educational and other prospects to discourage their entry or sale into commercial sex. As a result of these measures, carried out by many government departments (including health, education, police and military) in coordination with NCOs and the media, HIV prevalence in 21- year-old men in northern Thailand fell from 7.1% in 1992 to 3.5% - less than half - by 1995, and has decreased even further since then.

In Uganda, again thanks to concened government and NC0 action, pregnant young women attending antenatal clinics have considerably lower infection rates than they used to. Most encouragingly, the biggest decrease is in the youngest age group, those aged 15 to 19. In some clinics, rates have plummeted from 38% in 1991 to 7.3% in 1996. While some of this drop can be explained by increased condom use, some is due to the trend among young people to begin their sexual life later.

Another country in which young people are postponing first intercourse is Switzerland. Interestingly, the proportion of 17-year-olds who had begun having intercourse started to fall in 1987. This is the exact same year in which condoms were wade widely available to young people and when condom use among 17-20-year-olds who were sexually active started rising from 17%, reaching 69% by 1994.

Adults to trust and talk to

Adult support is not just a question of remote, impersonal action taken by government departments or far-off organizations. One of the biggest needs young people around the world have identified is for understanding on the part of their parents, teachers and community leaders. They need adults they can turn to and trust, adults who will

listen as they explain what they are experiencing and coping with.

A major nationwide study in the USA on adolescents has found that the single most important factor in healthy development is a caring adult to whom the young person feels connected - loved by, listened to, cared about. This finding was independent of race, ethnic group and socioeconomic St&US.

Some of the commun.ication needs to focus on sexuality. According to a report by the International Center for Research on Women, “Despite numerous barriers documented... young women and men want increased communication with adults on sexual matters. For example, nearly 80 percent of female adolescents in the Mexico study said that they would like to talk more about sexuality with their mothers, and 60 percent would like more communication with their fathers. The Khon Khaen, Thailand, school-based study

CC In my country, 8otswana, there is a serious problem of communication between parents and their children. This is a cry from our hearts. Parents - talk to us. Without your communication, guidance, dialogue, we are a lost generation. Come to our aid. XJ

14-year-old girl addressing he lntemarional Conference, on STD/ADS in Africa. Kampala, f 995

1998 World AIDS Campaign Briefing Paper ;

also found that adolescents wanted access to trusted adults.”

Research with young people in the Pacific has highlighted the same appeal for communication and connection. As a young Samoan put it, “Parents and kids just don’t know each other. They don’t know what they’re like. They don’t know their habits. They don’t know when they’re hurt”.

Young people can communicate with trusted adults through the written word, too. In Uganda, a newspaper called Straight Ta/k with a circulation of around 100 000 a month is targeted at 14-l 9-year-olds. Breaking new ground, the paper gives ample space to comments and questions from its young readers, and the advice provided flourishing. by the adult editor is forthright. in

reply to one question from a male reader, the paper wrote, “If you are afraid oi having sex with your girlfriend, then you are not ready yet. Sexual feeling at your age is normal, but you don’t have to have sex. Masturbation could help you relieve these tense feelings.” Despite the unusually frank views expressed, the paper is

Sexual health education translates into lower risk Young people have a right to information and education. that affects their health. But what impact does sexual health education have? Is it helpful, or can it be harmful?

A WHO review of programmes around the world, recently updated by L~NAIDS, found that sex education does not lead to earlier or increased sexual acfivity, contrary to what many parents feared. The review concluded, instead, that:

9 the life skills needed for responsible and safe behaviour can be learned l goodquality educational programmes help delay first intercourse and protect sexually-active young people

from HIV, STDs and pregnancy.

Anecdotal evidence, too, suggests that sex education encourages safer sexual behaviour. ‘When I first came to this school in 1994, we had several drop-outs from girls who fell pregnant”, says Patience Ruyeko- Miengamero, a reacher at a rural school in Zimbabwe, an houfs drive from the capital Harare. ‘But last year following sex education programmes in 1995 we never experienced that, and for this year as yet there are no reports of pregnancies. ”

A separate study of an AIDSprevention programme among high school students in the Philippines found that, though there had been little impact on’condom use during sex, the programme had led to a delay in the age of first sex and increased students’ und&standing of HIV/AIDS. The same trend toward postponement of first sexual intercourse is now being observed in Uganda and the USA.

The UNAIDS review found that effective programmes share certain features: l they have as specific aims both delayed first intercourse and protected intercourse l they encourage the learning of life skills (the same skills that also help build self-confidence and avoid

unwanted pregnancy, sexuaLabuse and substance use) l they discuss clearly the result of unprotected sex and the ways to avoid it l they help young people “‘personalize” the risk through role-playing l they reinforce group values against unsafe behaviour, both at school and in the community.

UNESCO, UNFPA, WHO and the World Bank, alongside UNAIDS, are all engaged in helping countries translate these findings into action. A few examples illustrate the breadth of this work. With UNESCO’s help, decision-makers in West Africa and elsewhere are working together to develop effective educational programmes based on the WHO/UNESCO publication School health education to prevent AIDS and STD: a resource package for curriculum planners. This publication and the two companion volumes intended for teachers and forstudents were translated into French by UNESCO. UNFPA, which collaborans with countries on school population programmes, has already introduced the subject of AIDS into these in more than 100 countries, and the Wodd Bank is also using and promoting the J-volume WHO/UNESCO school package. WHO is providing technical assistance and training to educational and health authorities in China in order to introduce STD/AIDS education inro the school system in two provinces with high HIV prevalence rates.

Force for Chanqe: World AIDS Campaiqn with Younq People

This call for adult action does not imply that young people should become passive recipients. On the contrary. Young people can spur action and move it in the right direction. They are a powerful force for change in their own households, in the lives of their peers, and in the wider community too.

Worldwide, there are important examples of young people taking an active and even leading part in society, especially where their leadership is encouraged by adults who recognite the tremendous resource they offer. In many countries, young people are encouraged to take on roles as educators and mobilizers in local community groups, religious organizations and the like, including those in the AIDS field. Resilient in the face of profound emotional, economic and physical hardship, some young people are able to survive, thrive, and even take care of others, such as AIDS orphans in Africa who take over responsibility for the care of their many siblings.

There are special rZIasons why young people’s involvement is essential for action on HIV/ AIDS. Young people’s understanding of life, though often influenced by their parents and other adults, is also developed both with and among their peers.

It is groups of close friends that shape young people’s understanding of social relationships, teach them about give and take, and enable them to develop a sense of personal competence and responsibility. This kind of peer support is invaluable for AIDS action. With encouragement, it can channel correct information about HIV prevention. It can draw young people into productive activities, such as giving emotional support and bringing practical help and care to those affected by the epidemic.

Peer support, youth to youth, can be aided and encouraged. In an innovative programme of exchange tours, UNDP is bringing young people from Ukraine to Sweden where they visit Youth Clubs that are active in HIV prevention.

Giving young people the space to define what they see as important also brings useful insight and guidance to adults, such as those who are attempting to draw up curricula for AIDS education or to develop policies on human rights protection. When young people explore sex and sexuality, or experiment with drugs, they have their own interpretation of what they are doing. Behaviour that adults may label “risky, to be avoided” may be engaged in by young people

CC You have to start from the ground [children and youth] with education, so the youth will grow fruitfully and be protected from AIDS. If not, the tree will die. 79

youthdelegate to tJu 4& International Conps on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific, Manila, October I997

not only for entertainment but to show solidarity, to express and receive love, or for comfon and security. When there is mutual respect, rather than attempts solely to influence young people from above, adults can learn to understand these perceptions and, in partnership with young people, develop far more creative and relevant policies and programmes. Partnerships can also draw on young people’s immense reservoir of energy.

Young people are a force for change because they are young. They are resilient, open to change, creative and often idealistic - many of them have not yet encountered failures and the disappointments of time. Capitalizing on this force for change calls for young people to work in partnership with adults who encourage their participation and are receptive to their ideas.

1998 World AIDS Campaign Briefing Paper I

Whatever the adult world does for the health and development of young people, experience shows that it is best done not by manipulating the young or using them as tokens, but with their genuine participation. This means listening to young people, understanding how they think and act, offering assistance and support without dictating the outcome, and engaging them as active participants in activities and decision-making.

The following highly effective HIV/AIDS-related programmes are examples of approaches that value and fully integrate young people as participants.

The Asian Red Cross and Red Crescent AIDS Task Force (ART)

The Asian Red Cross and Red Crescent AIDS Task Force (ART) was established in 1994 by professionals and young

volunteers from 10 national Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in Asia to promote HIV/AIDS activities at grass-roots level.

In its first two years, ART trained 1000 young people as peer educators using a life-skills approach (see box). Teams of Red Cross/Red Crescent staff worked with young people in each country’ to develop culturally sensitive training manuals on sexua! and reproductive health and HIV/ AIDS. The manuals were pre- tested with groups of young people in each of the ten countries.

Following this, Red Cross/ Red Crescent staff met with young people from national Societies to discuss cultural differences reflected in each manual, to finalize the texts, and to develop principles for conducting sexual and teproductive health training to help young people protect themselves and their peers.

Important life-skills in the HIV/AIDS era How to make sound decisions about relationships and sexual intercourse, and stand up for those decisions.

How to deal with pressures for unwanted sex or drugs.

HOW to recognize a situation that might turn risky or violent.

How and where to ask for help and suppoh

When ready for sexual relationships, how to negotiate protected sex or other forms of safer sex.

How to show compassion and solidarity towards people with HIV/AIDS.

How to care for people with A/OS in the family and the community.

Youth-friendly health services, Lusaka, Zambia

In 1994 a group of NCOs in Lusaka, Zambia, realized that existing primary health clinics were not meeting the health needs of young people. The NCOs joined with the Ministry of Health and the district council in organizing an informal working group to identify these needs and develop a strategic plan. The working group meetings were attended by young people, health staff and NGO representatives.

One of the priorities identified was the need to increase the direct involvement of young people in the provision of services. Consequently, 52 young people were trained over a period of two weeks to provide counselling on pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, substance use, financial matters, and communication with partners. Once trained, these peer counsellors provided counselling and condoms to young people who came to the clinic for them. If a young person required medical care, the peer counsellor also served as a link between the young person and the medical staff.

Involving young people as peer counsellors had the double effect of (a) increasing attendance at the clinic because services were more suited to the needs of young people, and (b) creating strong links between the adults and young people in the community.


Young people felt more comfortable talking first with their peers and then, if necessary, with an adult health care provider.

Jornal Radical, Brasilia, Brazil

Jornal Radical is a monthly magazine for young people developed and published by the Athos Bulcdo Foundation in Brasilia, Brazil. The magazine attracts young people’s attention by using bright colours, photo- graphs and modem layout, and by discussing issues that interest them. The magazine, written in easy-to-understand language, covers cultural issues such as literature and music, social concerns such as human rights and politics, and personal matters such as sex and relationships.

The magazine has an interactive approach, whereby young people are asked to contribute articles, poems and drawings. Jornal Radical also interviews young people about their beliefs and aspirations. One of the magazine’s more radical innovations is to arrange for young people to interview government ministers, teachers, artists and musicians.

Jornal Radical has been distributed to over 1 .l million young people in schools over the past year and is immensely popular. Radical serves as an informal educational tool to raise young people’s social and cultural consciousness as well as to raise adults’ awareness of young people’s concerns. One young woman wrote in to say, “Radical offers us the opportunity to express what we desire and feel, and motivates us to read because the materials are super-interesting.”

cre tat

Clear Skies Project, Doi Saket, Thailand

The Clear Skies Project was ed in a rural district outside

Chiang Mai, Thailand, to provide emotional and practical support for people with HIV infection or AIDS. The project is entirely run by people who are themselves living with HIV/AIDS, many of them under the age of 25. The project arranges weekly meetings where HIV-positive people come together to discuss common tconcems such as health problems and community discrimination. They discuss possible solutions and work in partnership with various institutions, government offices, and health care centres.

The project has also worked with other groups to draw up a document outlining the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS.

One of the project’s main activities is to provide home care for people with AIDS who are too ill to leave their homes. Volunteers train families to look after sick family members. The project also conducts workshops on rn.editation and yoga, maintains a herbal medicine garden, and facilitates access to health clinics and hospitals. The project works closely with health care providers to increase their sensitivity to the need of people living with HIV/ AIDS for caring, sensitive, and confidential care.

Many of the newest staff members at Clear Skies Project are young men and women. They are vocal advocates of prevention efforts, speaking out at conferences and in schools on the realities, risks and pains of HIV infection. They have been particularly effective in raising school youth’s awareness of the difficulties faced by people living with HIV/AIDS. In classrooms where they have spoken, they have often changed young people’s attitudes from discrimination and fear to feelings of compassion and solidarity.

/ / 1998 World AIDS Campaign Briefina PaDer i

. - Y I

Force for Change, the 1998 World AIDS Campaign with young people, provides an opportunity for the social and private sectors to mobilite along with young people to promote

their highest state of well-being. When young people can work with each other and with the support and strong commitment of the adults in their lives (such as

leaders, health care providers and politicians) there is an opportunity to create a social environment that protects young people’s rights and enables them

1 parents, teachers, religious 1 to develop to their full potential.

Young people demand a say At the 1995 International Conference on STD/AIDS in Kampala, a “delegation” of young Africans from 11 countries, ranging in age from 14 to 24, issued a declaration of their needs and priorities. The declaration put forward a series of principles that UNAIDS endorses as essential for effective AIDS aciion:

m Youth participation: involve us in programme planning, implementation and evaluation and policy development in community decision-making processes.

n Youth-friendly services: support the provision of services, including centres where we can access information, support and referral.

m Parental involvement: strengthen the capacity of parents and other signficant persons in our lives to better communicate with us and provide guidance and support to us, our brothers and sisters.

m Education about HIV/AIDS and. sexuality: promote skills-based education on physical development, reproductive health and sexuality for both in and out of school youth.

n Protection of girls and young women: prevent the sexual abuse and exploitation of girls in vulnerable situations; emphasise the sensitization of boys, young men and elder men.

n Partnership with people with HIV and AIDS: build networks between young people with HIV/AIDS and other youth to promote prevention of HIV/AIDS, protection of human rights and acceptance of people with HIV/AIDS in society.

m Young people’s commitments: commit ourselves to responsible decision-making about our own sexual behaviour and positively influencqpur peers.

Along the same lines, the Commonwealth Youth Forum held in Edinburgh, in Ocrober 1997 put forward a statement of sexual and reproductive rights. The young people recognised “he responsibilities that these rights entail both CO individuals and to states”and uqed Commonwealth governments to protect those righu pursuant to the Programme of Action they had endorsed in Cairo at the International Conference on Population and Development in 1994. The Youth Forum’s declaration states:

All young people of the world regardless of sex, religion, colour, sexual orientation, or mental and physical ability have the following rights ai sexual beings:

1. The right to be yourself - free to make your decisions, to express yourself, to enjoy sex, to be safe, to choose to marry (or not to marry) and plan a family.

2. The right to know - about sex, contraceptives, STDs/HIV and about your rights.

3. The right to protect yourself and be protected -from unplanned pregnancies, STDs/HIV and sexual abuse.

4. The right to have health care - which is confidential, affordable, of good quality, accessible to all, and given with due respect.

5. The right to be responsible for one’s own actions and those that affect others.

6. The right to be involved - in planning programmes with and for youth, attending meetings/seminars etc. at all levels, and trying to influence governments through appropriate means.


The campaign has five objectives, all of which aim to reduce the spread of HIV, and to strengthen support for young people infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. The objectives are:

1. To promote young people’s genuine participation.

2. To promote policies and action for young people’s health and development using a human rights framework.

3. To increase awareness of the impact of HIV/AIDS on young people and young people’s impact on the course of the epidemic.

4. To mobifize social and private sectors to work in partnership on young people’s health and development.

5. To monitor the campaign.

***

Young people deserve priority attention in the ever-

growing HIV/AIDS epidemic. The numbers and the characteristics of the epidemic among young people differ by region: Africa and Asia show more transmission through heterosexual sex, Latin America through homosexual sex, and Eastern Europe and the Newly Independent States through drug injection. But unless .all regions develop effective means of reducing young people’s vulnerability to HIV and their risk for infection, entire populations of young people will be lost, the epidemic will keep gaining momentum, and the human and economic costs will become intolerable.

In creating culturally sensitive policies and action, it is important to look “beyond AIDS” to the larger picture of young people’s health and development. If we do not remedy the underlying causes - including human rights violations - that make young people vulnerable and put them at risk of HIV

infection, there is little hope of reversing infection trends durably. There are no shoncuts.

At the same time, policies and initiatives must move beyond viewing young people simply as a “target group” whose problems must be addressed and fixed. It is critical to recogniie the tremendous resource which young people represent. Initiatives that combine the strengths of both young p&ple and adults, from the planning stage all the way to implementation and evaluation, will be the ones that will make a difference. The creativity, energy and charisma of young people have brought insight and inspiration to programmes that listen to what young people have to say.

Young people and adults working together can create the FORCE FOR CHANGE in the 1998 World AIDS Campaign with Young People.

-ooo-


SECONDARY EDUCATION AND YOUTH AT THE CROSSROADS .



Panel I YOUTH: THE SITUA T/ON AND THE CHALLENGES

1.3 Youth Protection

Margie de Monchy

UNICEF

SECONDARY EDUCATION AND YOUTH AT THE CROSSROADS The Fourth UNESCO-ACEID International Conference

lo-13 November, 1998, Bangkok

YOUTH PROTECTION: EDUCATION A SOLUTION

Panel Presentation Margie de Monchy, UNICEF East Asia and Pacific Office

“Adolescence should be the time of greatest hope and promise in life. It can be a springboard, producing self confident young adults equipped with the knowledge they need to create a successful future for themselves and their societies. Or it can be the point at which everything goes wrong - when all their promise and potential are lost.” (1998 Progress of Nations by Ms. Geeta Rao Gupta, President of the International Center for Research on Women)

Adolescence, defined as age 10 to 19 years, is considered to be the time when young people are most vulnerable. When they are no longer a child and not yet an adult. When they remain dependent on adults to help realize their rights to education, health and development, despite growing responsibilities and changing roles and relationships. It can be a time of confusion and challenges, and a time when a number of young people become targets for exploitation and abuse.

The current generation of adolescents is the largest in history. One out of every six persons on the planet is between 10 and 19 years of age. Eighty-five percent are in developing countries. These adolescents are facing a confusing, rapidly changing world and a number of obstacles. l In 1997 alone, 3 million young people age 15 to 24 became infected with HIV,

two-thirds of them girls. l Girls age 15 to 19 give birth to 15 million babies a year and more girls in this age

group die from pregnancy related causes than from any other causes. l 73 million lo- 14 years are working, not including the hundreds of millions

believed to be in domestic service and illegal sex industries. l In developing countries, 59 percent of girls and 48 percent of boys are not

enrolled in secondary school.

The reality faced by many of today’s young people who may result in the loss of their potential and positive development is clearly recognized in recent Lisbon Declaration on Youth Policies and Programmes. It states as a necessary commitment:

“Giving higher priority to marginalized, vulnerable and disadvantaged young women and young men, especially those who are separated from their families and children living and/or working on the streets, with adequate programmes, actions and necessary funding, inter-alia, in order to provide them with the means and motivation to contribute effectively to their societies.“.

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YOUTH PROTECTION IN THE ASIA AND PACIFIC REGION

Recognition of children/youth in need of special protection in the Asia and Pacific countries has increased following the region-wide ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This recognition has also resulted in increased activities as a result of the obligations of each state party to report on the situation and implement measures to address violations of child rights. Despite these efforts, current conditions and situations are supporting a probable increase in the numbers of young people being in need of special protection.

Lack of comprehensive data on young people in need of special protection remains a major problem in most countries, as well as, a challenge due to the nature of the protection issues. However, we do have enough information to know that for too many young people, opportunities for healthy development are being lost.

What do we know?

We know that eighty percent of the world’s working children/youth are in the Asia region. In the majority of cases, the conditions and nature of their work do not interfere with their health and schooling but rather can be viewed as contributing to their skills development and as educative in nature for the development of social responsibility and skills. However, in too many cases the work becomes harmful or detrimental to their development. In some countries, preliminary data indicates that 4 out of every 5 working youth are not in school.

We know that the vast majority of child labourers are not easily visible. Most are hidden in family business, agricultural activities, or domestic work; working for neighbors or the community; or in private homes. Others are intentionally hidden by employers in factories, on cargo or fishing vessels, or in brothels.

We know that commercial sexual exploitation is the most prevalent form of forced child/youth labour in the region. In some parts of the region, 1 in every 3 commercial sex workers is under 16 years and that between 50-70 percent have been lured, cheated and/or sold often by persons familiar to them. Young people in these circumstances, both boys and girls, work in slave like conditions in a business, which has far reaching and even fatal consequences. They are at high risk of contracting STDs and HIV/AIDS; early pregnancy and maternal mortality; and physical and psychological abuse. Many are also violated through related trafficking and child pornography practices.

We know that some youth are found labouring in conditions, which are hazardous to their health and even survival. The most prevalent of these situations are found in pyrotechnics and firework factories; industries with dangerous machinery; construction and mining sites; salt processing fields; fisheries and deep sea fishing; and the carpet industry. In these sites there are no safety precautions to protect young workers from exposure to extreme heat, chemicals and explosives; dangerous equipment; heavy burdens beyond their physical capacity; the risks of working underground or in high places; in unsanitary conditions; and for long hours. Preference for child/youth labourers is a reality in some industries and enterprises.

3

Young people can be hired at cheaper rates, are more obedient, and are powerless as far as their rights are concerned.

We know that the dangers confronting youth are not exclusive to one socio-economic group, such as the poor and disadvantaged. Young people from middle class families, especially in urban areas, are often confronted with the lure of drugs, gambling, tobacco, consumerism and the media which can lead to high-risk behaviours. In addition, many young people with opportunities struggle with the rapidly growing generation gap and pressures to succeed at a time when jobs are limited.

We know that the young people with disabilities face issues of discrimination and lack of access to adequate social services in almost all countries in the region. It is estimated that only one in every 50 disabled child/youth in the region has access to education.

We know that violence against children/youth is an expression of unequal power relationships. The most powerless members of society are also the most vulnerable and most exploitable. In addition to the predictable powerlessness experienced due to their age, many adolescents are also facing the problems of lack of power and opportunity due to discrimination and exclusion, It is increasingly evident that strong links exist between violence and exploitation within the household, and violence and exploitation elsewhere. The vulnerability and powerlessness are as much a result as they are a cause of violence and exploitation. Moreover, violence teaches its own harsh lesson and perpetuates itself in succeeding generations.

We know that as children develop into adolescents, their physical power and skills may surpass their psychosocial skills, increasing their potential danger to society, one another, and themselves. The use of violence as a form of public entertainment and the impact on attitude and behaviour of “on-screen” violence is reported to be threefold: “First, we feel afraid, overestimating our own chances of becoming a victim of violent crime. Second, with repeated exposure, we become less affected by violence, because that is the only normal reaction to have. Third, desensitization may mean that we than need more excitement and stimulation to have a reaction.“.

Finally we know that the current economic crisis and consequences of structural adjustment, natural disasters and armed conflict are contributing to widening disparities, the creation of new disadvantaged groups, and an increasingly limited number of opportunities for many youth. At a time in the life cycle when young persons are looking to build their future, unemployment is increasing, financial assistance for education is shrinking, family demands may be growing, and in some countries, social unrest is escalating.

What are the major causes ?

Understanding the levels of causation contributing to children/youth being in need of protection is important. The basic factors of “poverty “, “disparities” and “rapid social change” are critical and the most obvious causes. However, there are also a number of underlying causes that impact the ability of youth to cope with the rapidly changing world and the situations that confront them. These conditions may impede their

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ability to make healthy choices versus one’s which endanger their survival and development.

Environments that are unsafe/unsupportive - Family support systems are weakening. Rural-urban migration resulting from structural adjustment and overseas employment is separating families. The loss of family members as a result of the long-term effects of armed conflicts and HIV/AIDS are fragmenting extended families and impacting livelihoods. Increased stress in reaction to rapid economic and political change is effecting family relationships and caring behaviors. When families fail, communities and social services become the second line of protection for young people. Yet social safety nets are decreasing resulting in limited availability and reduced quality of supportive services.

Youth are increasingly found working outside of their family environment and even far from home, which (in most cases) greatly increases their risk of being exploited, deprived and abused. Child/youth trafficking, often through the involvement (knowing or unknowingly) of family and relatives is a serious problem.

Lack of information/skills - Many Asian youth complain about having insufficient information to adequately face the challenges of the world today. Important life skills curricula, such as sex education, remains controversial. Too many youth are not getting a basic education. In some areas, poor quality and non-relevant education systems are leading parents for their children and youth themselves to prefer on the job skills development over formal education. This combined with access issues, demands of poverty, and the isolation of rural communities results in a perpetuating cycle of low level skills and literacy rates. In many cases, the teachers themselves lack adequate information and skills to pass on to their students,

Lack of opportunities to participate - An expectation within many cultures, especially in Asia is for children to provide unconditional service for their families. These traditional attitudes and/or practices in relation to children and their duties to their parents are identified as factors which can contribute to perpetuating exploitation. Unspoken rules which render young people powerless and voiceless in the presence of adults is reflected in many education systems in the region. Consequently, many young people are not prepared to be active participants in their own protection. Increased access to global media and a rapidly changing set of social values is beginning to challenge the situation but also may result in clashes between the younger and older generations.

ACTIONS FOR IMPROVED YOUTH PROTECTION

There is a tendency, when dealing with youth protection issues, to focus on problems, for example violence, sexual exploitation, HIV/AIDS, drugs, exploitative labour which are all important causes for concern. However, most of these problems come from a common soil and are inter-related. *This has important implications for the formulation of strategies to improve protection and healthy development.

Increasingly among agencies and organizations working with disadvantaged youth, there is interest in supporting programmes that move beyond the individual problems towards identifying goals that focus on the positive and protective aspects of

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adolescent development. There is also growing realization that while the Youth Protection categories, such as child labourer, child prostitute, street child/youth, may contribute to our conceptual clarity and understanding of the issues, in reality the boundaries are not so distinct. In most cases, when young people are in difficult circumstances there is a clustering of problems and high-risk behaviours.

In recent years, there has been a significant amount of research undertaken to explore reasons why some young people manage to cope well with the problems facing them and others do not. From these studies a number of factors have been identified which seem to increase the resiliency and coping skills of adolescents against a range of high-risk behaviours. These include the following:

l Connectedness with parents l Access to an adult who is caring and supportive (may or may not be parent) l Safe and supportive learning environment l Opportunities for community service l Spiritual dimension to their life (value formation)

The list of factors is simple and clear. Basically, the “immunizations” for adolescents are information, skills, safety, and support networks.

Needs and Rights of Young People

Adolescents need many things if they are to successfully make the transition from childhood to adulthood. They need love and hope. They need a sense of belonging. They need confidence and competence. In order to realize these needs and basic rights the following are important:

l Respectful and supportive relationships with parents, peers, service providers l Safe and enabling environment including, social values, norms of behaviour,

policies and legislation l Access to a range of adolescent friendly services, including, education., health and

nutrition, recreation, criminal justice l Access to information l Opportunities to develop life and livelihood skills l Opportunities to participate in decisions that effect their lives

For the majority of us, these conditions are taken for granted, during our development years. They are considered normal conditions of our families and communities and therefore may not be understood as being so critical to each choice we make in our lives. However, they are critical and must be the focus of any programmes for and with young people, especially those living in especially difficult circumstances.

Schools as key to improved protection of youth

In the best of circumstances, schools are at the center of a young person’s life. They provide a safe environment for learning, not only for academic development but also for psychological and social development, complementing the learning in the family.

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Many countries in the region have recognized investment in education and its value for the future development of people and societies. Overall primary school enrolment and completion rates are among the highest in the world. This situation, currently being threatened as more children in some countries are dropping out of schools due to economic reasons, requires monitoring.

Despite these achievements, there have always been problems in reaching the marginalized and hard-to- reach populations and in the transition to secondary education. Gross enrolment rates in secondary education remain low and with wide sex disparities. This situation has serious implications for youth protection.

Recognizing the important role schools can play in helping young people to develop, to be safe, to acquire skills for healthy living and for being resilient in the face of dangers and obstacles, new efforts need to be made to improve secondary education systems. Legislation and law enforcement is important yet limited. A large number of youth who are abused and exploited have been easily lured into these situations due to lack of knowledge, awareness and self-confidence - all of which can be learned.

Strategies for Making Schools More Responsive to Youth Protection

UNICEF has been in the process of developing some key strategies for improving school responsiveness to child and youth protection. Schools are seen as a key part of the solution as they can contribute greatly to prevention and early intervention against neglect, abuse and exploitation, as well as, to recovery and reintegration for the victims.

In addition to advocating for greater government investment in education some major strategies include:

Define, develop and disseminate models of healthy, child/youth friendly, rights based schools where teachers teach and young people learn the knowledge skills and values relevant to both local conditions and to the general challenges of society.

Decentralize governance of schools and promote school-parent-community linkages for increased community ownership of their schools and involvement in the education of their children and youth.

Map and identify the disadvantaged, marginalized and hard-to-reach groups in and ensure that opportunities for education are made accessible to these children/youth.

Ensure the inclusion of “life skills”, vocational training and career counseling in secondary education to respond to relevant interests of youth and their needs for survival and healthy development.

Develop the capacity in schools to identify and track at-risk children/youth and to provide appropriate school based interventions, or referrals to other services, for prevention and early intervention.

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Establish policies for stronger community and/or school centred monitoring systems such as child watch groups, systems for tracking out of school children/youth, hot lines, crisis intervention centres, ombudspersons and child protection bodies.

Increase flexibility in school schedules and teaching methodologies in order to respond to the needs of young people who have adult responsibilities in relation to their families, and or are in recovery and reintegration programmes.

Improve training and support systems for teachers in order to build their capacity as educators, role models, and support for students.

With these initiatives, we begin to respond to the calls for action from the World Youth Forum as stated in the Lisbon Declaration on Youth Policies and Programmes:

“Designing new strategies focusing on youth in distress and in violent circumstances, aimed at ending exclusion, offering renewed learning opportunities for early school leavers and continuous learning and training opportunities for both employed and unemployed youth. “ (Education, 4 1)

“Ensuring that young women and young men live within an environment free from threat, conflict, all forms of violence, maltreatment and exploitation.” (Peace, 34)

We must remember that young people are a resource not merely passive beneficiaries, investing in them is likely to save resources in the future.






1.4 The Perspectives of Youth on the Situation and the Challencres

Alice Teasdale

Northern Territory Department of Education, Australia

My topic is Youth culture: Identity, Alienation, Peer Influence, Politics, Mass Media.

I am not an expert in the field - my fields are taching, drama and film studies. My qualification to speak to you on this topic is that I am a young person, a “Youth”. As a young person, I am exploring and discovering my own and other cultures, and seeking identity in this context. My research has been to discuss the topic with a range of friends and acquaintances, also “youth”, about their viewpoints, and to reflect on my own somewhat fragmented range of experiences.

A Cultural Smorgasbord!

It’s impossible to speak for all Youth in the Asia-Pacific region. There is a kaleidoscope of cultures. We have a wealth of different histories, different traditions, different experiences, different challenges. In addition there are sub-cultures of every shape and form.

Young people today grow up with a multitude of cultural input. Mass media, global communication systems and travel and transport technology mean that much of the world’s population are exposed to wide-ranging influences. On a day to day basis we encounter different cultural iconographies, value systems, languages and idioms, religions, lifestyles, and behavioural dynamics. Multiplicitous challenges, options and influences are part of our experience, and will increase to be so.

This is very exciting. Diversity. Choice. Wide knowledge. Broad experience. It’s also pretty frightening. Somewhere in the middle of all of this often conflicting input, young people have to choose a path and find - or forge - an identity.

We need to learn to live with dislocaiton, uncertainty and change. In the past, pathways were clearer; cultural routines and certainties shaped our directions and choices. Rigid structures are breaking down and competitive individualism is arriving with its entourage of thrills and spills. To be “someone” you have to be different from or better than the next person.

Australia: opportunity and identity

I come from the lucky country. A developed country, a land of democratic rights, freedom and opportunity.

I also come from a country with one of the highest suicide rates in the world. In every 100 000 young men, over twenty commit suicide. 25 per cent of young male deaths are suicides. Almost every young person I know has been touched by suicide; a friend, an acquaintance, a peer, a family member.

I live in an individualistic society where it is up to each person to forge their own identity by what they do, what they achieve, how they behave. Young people

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have a multitude of choices and very little guidance in finding a path. It’s not easy to find employment, affirmation, recognition; signposts are few and far between. In a deeply anti-authoritarian culture, advice from authority and a previous generation seems irrelevant and inept.

Coca cola, Nike and Minority Cultures

In other cultural settings, the easy access to a range of cultures is having a different effect.

I teach in a remote area Aboriginal school. There are a number of small children at my school who can write the words “Nike” and “Adidas” - complete with logo and font - but who cannot even from the shapes of the letters of their own name.

There is, as we know, a pop culture of youth; pop music, coca cola, fast food, fast cars, top forty. In colourful, feel-good packaging this culture is transmitted through mass media, advertising, and peer groups. It’s culture of makeup, McDonalds and materialism.

I could make this cultural erosion the topic of this paper. It’s a complex problem. There are some exciting examples of groups who have grafted elements of traditional culture onto iconographies and symbols of pop culture in an attempt to encourage new, dynamic cultural identities for youth. Yothu Yindi, an Aboriginal

^ band, combines pop music with traditional language, instruments and costume, and is a great role model and source of pride for Aboriginal youth.

Culture is dynamic, not static; at times it is not a process of erosion, but one of adoption, resulting in synthesis, evolution. In some Aboriginal communities, the basketball court is a social centre. Groups play vigorous games; the level of ability is phenomenal. Teamwork, physical fitness, speed and co-ordination tend to be strong points for Aboriginal children. The sport taps into and develops these skills. The American basketbal sub-culture’s iconography has been whole-heartedly adopted. Michael Jordan is a hero. Fashion is baggy and T-shirts flaunt colourful goal rings and bouncing balls.

Perhaps the complex dynamics of global Americanisation of culture should be an important theme for discussion.

Youth Stories

I’d like to tell you to stories of several of my friends. I have said that the experiences of Youth in this region are kaleidoscopic. My “case studies” illustrate a range of experiences; they are individuals who are confronting in their own particular ways the peculiar set of challenges of being young in the late twentieth century.

Identity, idleness and illusions 3

Firstly, I’d like to tell you aboaut Katrina. She is intelligent, sensitive, and popular and twenty-one. She has friendly relationships with Mother, Stepfather, Father, Stepmother, Brother, Sister, several stepbrothers and sisters. Katrina is a violinist, and studied at the Conservatorium of Music. She loves music and her competence is unquestionable.

Three months ago, Katrina dropped out of University and is now unemployed. She moved back home and took a job cutting vegetables in a local restaurant. She fell in love, fell out of love, lost her job. This month she’s staying with a friend in Melbourne with indefinite plans to move on, eventually, to far North Queensland. She is drifting in search of direction, purpose and identity.

Her reason for dropping out of music was that being compelled to practice was damaging her love for music, a central enjoyment in her life. A music degree can lead either into professional ensemble or solo work (for a select minority) or to teaching. Neither option appeals to Date, so why pursue the qualification?

I know many young people like Katrina, with no sense of direction and, at times, little motivation to study or seek work. Disillusionment and dissatisfaction are strong.

On one hand, such a lifestyle is sometimes considered an important rite of passage, or search for identity, in Australian society. Many young people “bum around” for a few years, living on unemployment benefits or small change from short- term work, backpacking when the purse allows, living in cheap suburban share houses, socialising, experimenting with alcohol and drugs, irregularly indulging hobbies like surfing and amateur theatre, falling in love, occasionally picking up a few University courses, often dropping out or failing.

On the other hand, unemployment, disillusionment and lack of direction can be at the basis of serious depression.

Employment and self-discovery

Tom was in this position four years ago. He went straight from school to University, and moved in with a girlfriend within months. Two years on they split UP,

he dropped out of his courses at University, he attempted suicide.

Eventually Tom finished study. He adopted a stray cat and went regularly to nightclubs with friends. He had an irregular part time job at the market selling sausages, working twelve hour days for an illegally low wage. Tom had no clear goals, opportunities were limited, and depression was very real. The Commonwealth Employment Service sent him to computer courses once in a while, but again and again, his job applications were unsuccessful.

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Eventually, he was pleated in a job at a primary school, as receptionist and support officer.

Instant success story! Tom has a dynamic, engaging personality and children love him. He was surprised to discover his love for the kids, and has now nearly completed an education degree. He is part of an affirming and inclusive school community, a valued staff member with identity, competence and enthusiasm.

Unemployment brings deep-seated disillusionment. It is easy, when opportunities are limited, to lose self-esteem and motivation. Of course not every employment story is a tale of success, but unemployment stories are far less cheerful.

Cultural dislocation and identity

My next case study is Selina. Born in Sri Lanka, she and her two brothers grew up against the violent backdrop of war, before migrating when she was in her teens.

In Australia, Selina and her two brothers were the only overseas students at their country town High School, where they encountered constant racism. The family unit began to collapse under the strain of cultural dislocation. With her mother, Selina moved away from her abusive father until her mother was killed in an accident. She defied family obligations and moved in with church friends. Her father, furious, ostracised her. Selina continued to find security in study until three years into a nursing degree, when she dropped out, attempted suicide and was prescribed anti- depressants.

By this time Selina was in a stormy but secure relationship with a drama student from America. A few months later, Selina rang me to say she was pregnant. Should she terminate?

She is now the mother of two children, aged two and three and a half, and she and her husband move around the country following his career. At times she is full of pride and contentment in at last having a secure family unit around her. At other times she is frustrated by baby-minding. She still takes anti-depressants, and seems to have low self-esteem.

Selina never speaks Tamil, has little contact with Sri Lankan relatives, and is not involved in any cultural events. Although she seems to identify more with the culture of her husband and friends, the dislocation runs deep. At moments it flares; for instance, when her husband and I lapse into culturally specific conversations about’ television, films and literature, she is disproportionately angry at her inability to take part in the discussion.

Adoption and Pacific Island-Hopping

Mary has experienced a similar dislocation. Mary is Samoan. When she was twelve, she was adopted by her uncle, who lived in the Solomon islands with his

5 Australian wife. She married very young - a Frenchman, with whom she lived in Port Vila. They spoke entirely in French, and she mixed mainly with white French speakers, having very little to do with the locals and nothing to do with anybody from Samoa.

Like Selina, Mary became extremely depressed after several years, and has divorced and returned to Samoa. Was she part of French, Australian, Solomon or Samoan culture? Family, a powerful source of cohesion and identity in the Pacific, shifted around her - she moved away from her extended family, network, then her marriage collapsed. She is a victim of greater population mobility - cultural dislocation, and alienation from a familiar cultural environment, have contributed to severe depression.

Australia’s Stolen Generation - The Aftermath

Rose has a very different sort of cultural dislocation to deal with. I met Rose in a very small Aboriginal community. She is Aboriginal, but, unlike her partner and most of the local community, she is not (using their own terminology) full blood. She and others are generally referred to as “half-caste”, and she jokes wryly about not being black or white, but brown.

Rose’s grandparents were part of the “stolen generation”. They were half- caste children, taken from their families somewhere in the cent& Australian desert and placed in a strict mission home in an remote community in the tropical North. Children were isolated from their culture and systematically trained in Anglo- Australian behaviour. Abuse was rife; conditions were terrible.

Rose’s parents lived in Darwin, and brought up Rose and her four brothers and sisters in an almost entirely Anglo-Australian cultural context. However there was still some contact with Aboriginal culture; by inter-marriage, her uncle is a traditional owner of some country in Arnhem Land. The family returned to their land some years ago.

Rose does not speak any of the community’s four Aboriginal languages. Return was a complex process of learning the intricate patterns of behaviour and relationship. She now has a child, whose father is a local full blood Aboriginal, and being part of his extended family network is demanding and difficult. In her mind, she still analyses her experience from an Anglo-Australian perspective. Rose attempts constantly to juxtapose the demands of her Aboriginal family and her Anglo- Australian way of thinking. I know she finds it difficult and frustrating, and her self- esteem is very low.

Conclusions?

I’ve painted a bleak picture. This is because I’ve been asked to speak about challenges. The general outlook is far from being bleak. I have had a feast of experiences in my lifetime, a plethora of opportunities and events which, twenty years ago, would have been much harder to come by. We live in an age when, in spite of

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the occasional narrow-minded right-wing backlash, cross-cultural understanding is valuable and valued in many important arenas. The likelihood of life as we know it being obliterated by nuclear war sldom occurs to me; thirty years ago, everybody lived with a sense of doom. More and more people have access to education and knowledge, and an increasingly sophisticated information superhighway facilitates world-wide communication.

To ride the wave of this brave new world, we need to learn how to deal with the particular brands of dislocation and uncertainty which confront us. Change is rapid and global. Values shift, collapse, are rediscovered. More people have more and bigger choices, In my culture, more people shift from job to job. Tenures are more temporary, and people are likely to have multiple careers.

Fierce individualism and fragmentation of experience are damaging for many young people in their search for identity. Perhaps in discussion we can explore ways to foster cohesion and community.

It’s very hard to propose concrete solutions for a host nebulous problems which are symptomatic of irreversible social trends. A lot of power is with educators. Primary and secondary students need to be taught to embrace this multicultural world, and to accept and enjoy difference. Although some unfortunate people seem to try, I don’t think it’s possible - or wise - to return to a culture of certainty, ethnocentricity, well-trodden pathways and defined identity.

Instead, a new generation will have to learn to forge identity from rich and colourful diversity.






1.5 Street Youth: Emrdoyment?

Fr. Joseph Maier

Human Development Centre, Bangkok .

“ SLAUGHTER HOUSE KIDS AND EC0 MONSTERS “

In the Slaughter house part of the Klong Toey Slum, “The Bloom is off the Rose.” Our Slum Eco System is in trouble. Trouble all up and down the food chain. We used to slaughter over 2,000

thousand pigs. Now its 300 at most. Slaughter at night. Why? Its cooler, but most of all, to mesh with Fresh Market convenience. Pork in the Markets by 3:30 AM. Bangkok slaughters its Pork night by night. The men begin butchering the pigs about 9:00 PM - finish by 2:00 AM immediately taking the pork to the fresh markets of the city in the back of open pick up trucks. Except when it rains, they pull a tarpaulin over the back to keep the pork dry. Used to be everyone flourished: except the pigs of course. The Community fared well, cooking up what was let? over after the Pork went to Market. The puppy dogs grew up fat, slept a lot, didn’t howl or fight much, barked mostly at other dogs. The cats spent the cooler parts of the day sleeping on the tin rooftops. The kids went to sleep with their moms when their dads went to work.

The Officials shut down the Slaughter House over a year ago. The “Offtcial” offtcials who were in charge of these “matters of Pork” stated that the books had not balanced in years. It seems that the moneys were placed in the cash boxes of the “Non 0fftcial”‘OtIicials rather than the Official Officials so they closed the place. Plus a Health problem: there was no proper soak pit. “Sanitation wasn’t real cool “ Translation: raw effluvia simply got dumped into the canal flowing into the River. Now they slaughter Pigs elsewhere - same rules - but the equation has changed slightly. It seems there are even more “Non Official” Oflicials “ than before. The kids watch and listen to the adults talk.

That’s really the essence of the Economic Crash here. The Era of the “Non Offtcial Officials” and it makes the “good guys” want to give up. Now to slaughter Pigs, the ‘Starting up” fees cost more. The Health Department stamp of certified pork costs more. - with even less Hygiene inspection than before - that means less control over the Pork you buy in the fresh markets.

Come Sunset, nightly, 50 of the Butchers climb into 5 vans nightly to be driven off to rather clandestine slaughter houses. Also one brave merchant has returned to slaughter pigs here in the Old slaughter House of Klong Toey. He has “Official Permission” month by month.” A risky endeavor. Pork on the hoof is expensive, the “Non Ofhcial Officials are Hungry. These folks have voracious appetites or big pockets, I don’t know which. Guess it doesn’t make much difference. TheI? is theft no matter what you call it. People also buy less pork in the fresh Markets. He has to cut costs. Thus “Out of town” workers with the same old patterns. Rent a room together, buy ‘28’ degree booze in the early evening so they go to work somewhat besotted. They drink less nowadays. Before you could “run a tab” now, times are tough and its a “Pay as you drink “, glass by glass, bottle by bottle in the Mom and Pop stores. The Moms and Pops say you can usually get your money back from last night’s boozers, even if they don’t remember but its too risky to get your money back from those who smoke “Ma” secretly at home and then drink booze at a shop.. They get mean and violent real easy. And often. This is a new rule. A “Wake up Call to Society.” And the kids watch all this. Why put up with this at all? the Moms and Pops say: “you have to keep your clientele “.

More “Ma” (Amphetamines) nowadays, but the street smart scholars tell us “ economics say: Lace the stuff with Heroin to addict your clients rather than drive them berserk”. The present method of choice is inhaling Amphetamine smoke, Goes great, they say, with Alcohol.

I asked recently “ What’s the shelf life of an amphetamine pill here in the Slaughter House and does the smoke give off an odor? A loud snigger: Like, wow! This guy must have drank lots of

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water buffalo milk when he was a kid..... Finally, : ’ Just like any other pill - 3 years maybe.” New style is to smoke the stuff. 4 - 5 pills a day. No, the smoke from the burning pill does not give off an odor. Four or five pills a day: Free at first till you get to like’it and then 50 Baht a pill: used to be 120 Baht. That’s where the “out of town” Slaughter House workers wages go.

Sending money home to your family . . . that’s “sissy stuff’ - only girls do that! What a silly idea. Sending money home to the Provinces to feed your children and wife and parents or help a brother or sister to go to school. What craziness! Imagine!

We who live in the Slaughter house are glad the pigs are back: slaughtering about 300 pigs a night. But this also a “good new” “bad news” story. The Pigs are the “good news”. The Rats and. Roaches are the “bad news.” They left with the pigs. They returned with the pigs.

True, even one rat is one too many, but they eat well which makes them fat and lazy. Most of the time, they are out of sight. The ones you do see are all scars. I’ve never seen an rat without scars. And the Kitty Cats really do not have to hunt for food. They leave the Rats alone and the Rats “know their place.” Same goes for Slum houses.. this presumes that your house is totally clean and all the food put away always. Always in a food cabinet with those little bowls of water under each cabinet leg and away from the wall so that the Ants and roaches can’t get in. These creatures follow the food rules strictly, and if there is no food to eat, they stay away. That’s why slum houses are immaculately clean inside. The dirty ones have a visitors. The creepy crawlies. And the children see and live through all this day by night.

Now most of the Old Slaughter House is a Truck Parking Lot . Pay money to park. The Pig Pens are off to the side. The tractor-trailer I8 wheelers. The Big Rigs are Eco Monsters. Up to twenty trucks running their engines all night for the Air Conditioning so the drivers can sleep cool.

All this pollution going into the houses where the kids are asleep. Plus more drugs. Drugs to wake up and drive by and booze to go to sleep. Eco Gangsterism.

The Eco Monsters are lethal. Last week after a heavy rain some children were playing in the water. Fuel, truck tires and a leaky container. Liquid Poison. Stuff they use to tan leather - cow and water buffalo. It foams and bubbles in the water and of course the children did not notice until it was too late. In fact no one notices. No one even dreamed “they” would do this to our children. An immediate skin reaction. One 3 year old boy has a head full of sores. His mom shaved his head so his hair wouldn’t slow the healing process. Another girl broke out in skin pigmentation loss . . . all white blotches . . . She will take months to heal. A Commercial firm has subleased the Truck Parking lot from the Port Authority. But Eco Monsters rule supreme. The damage to the next generation of Thai children goes on day by day. One assumes that the Port Authority put in provisions in the contracts for the protection of Slaughter House Children and all children. And that if they knew these things were happening, that they certainly would enforce these provisions. Certainly, they would never knowingly all Eco Monsters to thrive on Thai soil.

But you good folks reading this must understand. This area is for trucks and pigs and smaller four legged - six legged animals. It was never intended for people. The Slaughter House - even Klong Toey - is not user friendly. Is not people friendly. People are not supposed to live here. This is a factory: everything is to be turned into cash. These are the Rules.

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On the Adult level. There are rules. First the old rules. rules. One day a week, according to the Lunar Calendar is a Holy Day and Religious Tradition does not allow the Slaughter of animals on that day. The pigs were safe. The men who were the butchers and the women who washed the entrails had a day off. The merchants did not truck in pigs from the pig farms in the Provinces. Everyone had a day off. The unwritten rules said: The men can sit around and perform the Drinking Ritual. Yes a real Ritual. The local Whiskey, the Soda, the little brown bottles with the red bull on the label, the tripe soup plus a few more nibblies, the set topics of conversation - a three to four hour ritual. Also allowed was that if a man was too noisy or too tipsy, the women would literally drag them home, sometimes pulling them by the ear like a recalcitrant child, but usually prodding him home with a small stick. There’s less tolerance for drunks now. And the Holy Day Rules are still in place, but now they have to butcher the pigs on the Holy Day. The City of Bangkok’s demand for Pork grows with the growth of the city. New Rules with old penalties.

So now there are more risks. Donations paid to the “Non Offtcial Officials” if they catch you with freshly butchered pork on a forbidden day.. . . no - they will not take an open pick up full of fresh pork and keep it overnight in a Precinct Station, so there must be an immediate exchange of gifis: freedom to drive away for paper printed by the National Treasury.

More new Rules: Used to be a that drunks were their usual nuisance. We followed the old adage: “Don’t preach to a drunk, pay no attention to the ranting of a crazy person.” Now, neighbors, especially the women phone to the police. They are not afraid anymore, or better said, are still afraid, but more of an attitude of “ Whatever is going to happen, let it happen.” Its the women that phone the Police: seldom the men.

And the shacks. The houses. Many old time residents rent houses they used to own. They’ve lost their houses to the money lenders. Sometimes for gambling, but usually for sick children. Borrow money to pay sick bills for your children or mom or dad. The present going rate to borrow money is you borrow one hundred Baht and you must pay two Baht interest everyday.. . . Which means at the end of 30 days, you own one hundred and sixty Baht.. . Plus the fear of drugs and fire from new and transitory “out of town” renters. Folks say, even our Slaughter House Catholics: Woe be to thee if thine house be surrounded by “out of town” renters. You see, these renters - the out of town renters - do not respect the Guardian Angels, the Spirit Guardians of the place. And from this apathy, this lack of non feeling, the Guardian Spirits are unable to do anything good because the people don’t care. So thus you have a constant silent clashing in serious matters of the soul. Plus real fear of fire, real fear of drugs: that your kids will be addicted. When you do not pay off your loans to the money lenders, the threat of violence is so real you can taste it. The vice twists tighter.

Even in the best of time, many houses were built over the pig pens. Not a real cool place to raise your children. Going to sleep with the scream of pigs being slaughtered literally IO feet away. Through the years, the boys haven’t survived well. Lots have died in knife tights, drunken motorcycle accidents: running into stationary objects like electrical poles and hitting moving targets like cars and other motorcycles. Prolonged use of “ma” makes your brain down speed to “slow motion.”

Besides the Slaughter House, folks use to work the Ships - Everything: Chip off rust - paint - carry 100 Kilo bags on their backs.. “The women worked beside the men below deck in the holds of the ship . . some worked above deck: the cabins. But that’s all gone now. There’s no ships - the ones that do come, you can count on one hand. So to survive they have to find something else.

Even the Garbage Collectors complain. People aren’t throwing away stuff like they used to. Less salable junk. Fewer cans and bottles and plastic and paper, plus there’s more scavengers more

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competition. A buyers market, so the middle men cut their prices. Stuff you used to sell for 100 Baht now goes for 60 Baht. Not fair.

But there are bright spots. Kids survive. An eight year old girl named Sai lives with us at Mercy Centre. Came from the Slum near to the Suspension Bridge on the Bangkok side of the River. Her dad’s dead of AIDS and her mom’s in Prison, and if she does survive the Prison, she won’t survive her AIDS which she received from her husband. Sai ran away last week. Went home to bring her two little brothers except she did not know the way back to Mercy Centre. She knew how to get home, but not back. But she did know the Phone number, so begged a Baht coin - phoned and told us to come and get her. Didn’t tell us about her two brothers at first because she wanted to come and see if our place was alright.. . . . she supported her self and her 2 little brothers for over a month by herself.. they didn’t live well and things were getting worse when we found her... but survive she did. Yesterday they were out of candy money at Mercy Centre. No candy, but there are lots of donated toys. She was selling donated toys to all the kids in the area at IO Baht apiece.

There is hope.

A Good News & Bad News story.. the expensive suits and uniforms and pretty dresses “Express Mail Serviced’ take all our Thai Baht beyond our borders, not even clearing customs - and now the poor, the children have to pay it back.. . Sai and Slaughter House Kids complain. that the price of candy has doubled.. they can’t afford it anymore.

These are the same kids who ran home from school, crying. Teacher said “you kids shouldn’t live in Bangkok. You should go home.” Sai says: “I’m not going. I was born here. I belong here. This is my home.”

Fourth UNESCO-ACEID International Conference SECONDARY...

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Transcript of Fourth UNESCO-ACEID International Conference SECONDARY...