Teen Peer Education in Mali

Our Teem Peer education program has been successful running every week! Socrates, our long-time peer educator, is currently in the process to training our teen peer educators. Data from the weekly sessions show that we are reaching a large percentage of girls currently in school. It is encouraging to see what a multi-ethnic place our neighborhood of Sikoro is; we have over teens from over 12 ethnic groups enrolled in our peer education sessions! Once our adolescent educators are trained, they will begin leading sessions on their own and Socrates will give them feedback for a period of time. When they are fully competent, the teen educators will begin holding sessions in their neighborhoods to bring relevant information out into the community.

We have adapted the national model for peer education to get our program rolling, yet we have our sights set on reaching and affecting the largest at-risk population. Through discussions with a colleague who runs Eminyeeto, a peer education program for girls in Uganda, we are inspired to implement peer education as an afterschool program in Mali. The main issue our teens in Sikoro face is early pregnancy which can also mean infection with HIV or other STIs. A medical anthropologist collegue, Mr. Dolo, confirmed our research by telling us that he had been contacted by school directors who complained of girls dropping out due to pregnancy. Once we have a better sense of the effectiveness of our program, we hope to begin making the necessary connections to bring our program to schools. In the words of our Program Director, Dr. Tounkara:

Adolescence is a difficult to time for families as teens reject authority and strive for autonomy. Education through outreach strategies is the best way to avoid the problems associated with the significant rate of physical growth as well as physiological and emotional changes that happen during adolescence that may lead to high-risk behavior such as: early pregnancies, STIs (including HIV and HPV), drug and alcohol abuse, smoking, and eating disorders

Here are the statistics from our weekly sessions:

300      Participants

80%     Female participants

16        Average age

87%     Between the ages of 14 and 18

13%     Older than 18 or younger than14

96%     Attending school

Please support our innitiative as we expand this important program! We greatly appreciate your contribution!

Links:

• Our website

During our recent trip to Bamako, we met with Souleymane Dolo, of Groupe Pivot, and he explained how peer education traditionally works in Mali. 

While there are many official structures and organizations in Mali, there are also unofficial organizations that are deeply ingrained in the social fabric. “Tontines” are groups of women who meet daily and collect money to buy and sell merchandise or take turns giving each other loans. “Grains” are evening gatherings of neighbors that are formed by shared interests. Both “grains” and “tontines” are naturally self-organized by age and gender, making them the perfect location to introduce peer education that touches on topics of sexual and reproductive health.

Our teen peer educators wll be fully trained according to the national protocol for teen peer education. They must be well versed in providing advice, and they must be fully trained in confidentiality because they will hear about everyone’s private issues. Socrates, a professional peer educator will train our teen educators to engage in each session little by little, until they are ready to take over.  

Peer educators can integrate into the social groups of the "tontines" and "grains" (which are already organized according to age and sex) to talk about the themes they have been trained in. People can ask personal questions (because they are already among their intimite friends), and they can request a certain theme that the peer educator will prepare for the next session.

By learning how to develop our program in accordance with Malian methods for peer education, we can assure the highest level of success. 

Please join us in our efforts to increase teen peer education in Bamako. Adolescence are a very at-risk sector of the population, and your donation will help improve the quality of their lives.

Many thanks,

Links:

• Check out our Teen Peer Education page on our website