“If it’s for money, nobody would sit here”

Lucy, the nurse who leads one of Pathfinder’s Youth Friendly Services programs in the Volta region, reiterated the point many times over that the peer educators and service providers she organizes are involved in this work for the betterment of their community – for the good of “our people.” I don’t doubt her; in fact, it’s obvious from the remarkable initiative of the peer educators and the dedication of the service providers that nothing else could be motivating their work. Not to mention the fact that the peer educators work entirely on a volunteer basis and the service providers receive no monetary payment over their district salaries except for modest travel and meal stipends received on meeting days.

Yesterday I traveled to the Volta region of Ghana (the southeastern region bordering Togo) to attend a monthly assessment meeting for PI’s Youth Friendly Services (YFS) program in both the Ho and Akatsi districts. The YFS program has two main components: (1) making reproductive health facilities more “youth-friendly” (separate procedure and counseling rooms, more convenient hours, lower fees, staff trained to talk to adolescent groups in a non-judgmental manner etc.) and (2) training peer educators to perform outreach efforts in order to disseminate sexual and reproductive health information as well as refer their peers to the health facilities, if necessary. Assessment meeting is really too formal a title for what I observed; the meetings were an opportunity for the peer educators and the service providers (mainly nurses and midwives working at the YF facilities) to come together and share both the successes and challenges of their work.

It was really amazing for me to listen to the peer educators talk about their work. Both YFS and peer educators are terms that I’ve heard thrown about during my two years at PI, but I don’t think I ever fully understood the need or the importance of these types of programs before today. Many of the peer educators in the Akatsi District talked about how STIs, HIV/AIDS, unwanted pregnancy, and drug abuse are plaguing the young people of their community. I asked many of the peer educators why they became involved in this work (they range in age from 17 to mid-twenties) and every one cited these problems in the local community and the need he/she felt to help his/her peers. When asking this question, I was expecting a more involved—or at least more varied—response, but I think the simplicity of that answer reveals both the complexity of the problem and the (small but) meaningful impact of the singular actions of these peer educators.

One young man, Patrick, led a group of four fellow peer educators, to visit two schools to talk about STI transmission, prevention, and treatment as well as the dangers of teenage pregnancy within the context of a broader discussion on family planning. He relayed the fact that the students at the schools were quite engaged and very participatory during the session and the schools’ administration, because of the positive response by the students as well as the peer educators’ ability to lead the session in the local language, requested a second visit by the group. Beyond this success at the school, Patrick went to talk to the local assemblyman and arranged for the airing of the peer educators’ presentation on a local radio station that is broadcast in public areas throughout the town; the presentation is expected to air in three towns in the coming weeks. The initiative needed to organize and perform all those tasks—while receiving no pay…while talking about sexual health with perfect strangers…while traveling long distances—is truly extraordinary…at least, that’s more than I do in an average day.