Helping Street Kids Cope with Drugs and AIDS
By David James-Wilson
Teenagers in Central Asia, particularly in states along major drug trafficking corridors like Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, are increasingly susceptible to HIV/AIDS and drug abuse. Street Kids International (SKI) , with funding from the Open Society Institute's International Harm Reduction Development (IHRD) program, is providing youth workers in the region with new materials and techniques to make young people aware of these issues. Program manager David James-Wilson reports about SKI's first year of activity in Central Asia.
t the airport in the Tajik
capital of Dushanbe, dozens of children and teenagers swarm around new
arrivals, selling newspapers, offering to carry bags, or begging for money.
They are members of Central Asia's "transition generation," born in the
last years of Soviet rule and coming of age in a time of economic and
social upheaval. Every day they contend with the boredom and anger that
comes with declining youth services, marginal employment opportunities,
and collapsing public education systems. According to a recent UNICEF
study, in 1989, 61 percent of Tajikistan's 15-to 18-year-olds were enrolled
in school. By 1998, enrolment had dropped to 24 percent.
Building bridges to these increasingly alienated young people has not
been an easy task for youth workers in Central Asia. Programs created
to serve at-risk youth often fail because social workers lack the training
to reach young people who mistrust the adults around them.
Yet never has the need to develop effective health promotion and harm reduction programs been more urgent.
Throughout Central Asia, drug use and HIV/AIDS infection—and the related issues of depression, suicide, violent juvenile crime, and homicide—are rising rapidly. The same UNICEF study showed that average mortality rates for 15-to 24-year-olds increased by almost 30 percent between 1989 and 1998. The region is in a position similar to that of countries such as Thailand, India, Zambia or South Africa ten years ago. Young people in those countries are now paying a deadly price because the early warning signs of increasing HIV/AIDS transmission and drug use were ignored.
In Central Asia, the Open Society Institute's International Harm Reduction Development (IHRD) program has been supporting efforts by Street Kids International (SKI) to bring at-risk youth and social workers together before the spread of HIV/ AIDS and drug use gets out of control.
Funded by a $100,000 IHRD grant, Street Kids International, a Canadian-based NGO founded in 1989, has spent the last year planning and running workshops for youth workers in seven cities in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.
The workshops center around Russian language versions of Street Kids International's award-winning animated videos, Karate Kids (1990) and Goldtooth (1994), which SKI has used with local partners in Latin America, the Caribbean, North America, Africa, and South East Asia. Karate Kids deals with sexual health (including HIV/AIDS), and Goldtooth addresses substance abuse. The videos are supplemented by translated print materials, which facilitate interactive exchanges.
Youth workers are often surprised during the workshops when tough, reticent kids acknowledge for the first time how drugs help them cope.
“Local UNAIDS workers told trainers who went to Tajikistan that the topic of sexual health might be off limits. Instead, the meeting was one of the most active workshops in the region.” |
"When you can't overcome your problems, you have nowhere to go," said a participant who grew up in an orphanage, "but drugs help you escape. Drug dealers applaud your problems and are just waiting to help you escape."
The videos and exchanges moved one group of kids at an Almaty youth center so much that they became peer educators and started leading discussions with other young people.
SKI has also helped local social workers tackle the question of HIV/AIDS
issues in more conservative Muslim regions of Tajikistan and South Kyrgyzstan.
Local
UNAIDS workers told trainers who went to Dushanbe in November that the
topic of sexual health might be off limits. Instead, the meeting was one
of the most active workshops in the region as trainers and participants
used a respectful participatory methodology to identify how parts of Karate
Kids and Goldtooth might offend some young people and social
workers as well as members of the larger community.
"We asked social workers what questions would kids ask about HIV/AIDS if they could," said Lena Vinogradova, a workshop trainer and community center coordinator from Almaty. "They didn't have to talk from their own point of view, but from the perspective of children."
Workshop participants then used this technique to select points in the video where indirect questions about the characters could allow young people to safely and inoffensively discuss their own experiences. This process let social workers respect the community's values but also address sensitive questions of child prostitution, police violence, teen pregnancy, domestic violence, and sexual abuse.
After one year, much work remains to be done. With continued help from IHRD and a growing network of other supporters, Street Kids International intends to continue the program and give local youth workers more opportunities to lead workshops and supplement SKI's materials with their own. Responses from youth workers after the first round of workshops indicate that they are eager to continue reaching out to the region's "transition generation."
"I was once a teenager at risk," wrote a volunteer youth worker from Bishkek. "I'm so glad I can work with teens and protect them from drugs. Everything I've learned here will help me do that better."
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