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Program: The YouthsConcernCareSolidarity Project
Tasks
- To start a National Red Ribbon Campaign on Youths Concern, Care and Solidarity Actions, gender issue and HIV/AIDS as a way forward in reducing sexual activities, sexual abuse and coercion amongst adolescents
- Taking a Stand on Youths Concern, Care and Solidarity Action
No identifiable set of highly respected and credible national leaders has been willing to state clearly and repeatedly that teenagers ought not to become pregnant or be parents. Leaders may feel it's taboo--"too hot to handle"--but they should know... that speaking out clearly on Youths Concern, Care and Solidarity Action would do much to clarify values in this area, and to help those who work at the community level to reduce such pregnancies. As one local leader mused, "So many of the young girls and boys I see just don't think it's such a big deal if the girl gets pregnant." This observation goes to the core of the matter: it is a big deal, and the nation's leaders must say so, forcefully and repeatedly.
We believe that all those associated with the National Campaign must take a public and visible stand on Youths Concern, Care and Solidarity Action and encourage others to do so as well.
- Enlisting the Help of the Media to Increase Youths Concern, Care and Solidarity Action
One of the strongest points of consensus among all in the Campaign is that enlisting the help and power of the media is central to the effort. Indeed, the importance of media leadership on this issue will be stimulated the most spirited exchange during Red Ribbon Talk shows.
The National Campaign will establish a Media Task Force to oversee an ambitious and multifaceted media campaign to increase Youths Concern, Care and Solidarity Action.
- Supporting and Stimulating Regional and Local Youths Concern, Care and Solidarity Action
Just as "all politics are local," it is also true that "all programs are local."
The National Campaign will, therefore, establish a Task Force on Regional and Local Action.<\LI>
- Leading a National Discussion About the Role of Religion, Culture, and Public Values in Increasing Youths Concern, Care and Solidarity Action
Individuals who have tried to address Youths Concern, Care and Solidarity Action and HIV/AIDS prevention at the local level often report that their main stumbling block was not financial or organizational, but rather the stormy diversity of views that this issue often attracts. Groups argue over the moral value of abstinence versus contraception for preventing pregnancy, whether or not men are being held sufficiently accountable for impregnating girls and fathering children out-of-wedlock, the proper role of parents versus schools in teaching children about human sexuality, whether or not virginity until marriage is an outmoded concept in the late 21st century, whether or not the easy availability of contraception stimulates sexual activity among adolescents, and so on. Moreover, a wide variety of cultural values and traditions are represented in many areas of the United Republic of Tanzania, differences that can make it especially hard for communities to agree on the best approaches to increasing Youths Concern, Care and Solidarity Action.
The National Campaign obviously cannot resolve all of these issues, but it can lead a national discussion about them that attempts to clarify common values, and bring into public view the best research and information available on these topics. By failing to face up to honest differences, to listen respectfully to each other, and to search for common ground, we ensure that the " Action culture " over Youths Concern, Care and Solidarity Action will continue to rage, and forward progress will be thwarted.
The National Campaign will, therefore, establish a Task Force on Religion, Culture, and Public Values to stimulate an explicit discussion of the underlying disagreements and differences that often impede progress in increasing Youths Concern, Care and Solidarity Action.
The Task Force will need to be creative in these uncharted waters, but obvious activities include convening groups with differing views to discuss their perspectives in a neutral environment and holding a series of "town meetings" around the nation to explore some of these controversial topics. In all such efforts, the perspectives of organized religion must be explored, given that Tanzanians exhibit high levels of religious affiliation, that many religious groups are deeply concerned about the general state of Tanzanian families, and that many are looking for ways to address the specific problem of Youths Concern, Care and Solidarity Action in their own communities. Others who should be represented on the Task Force include those skilled in public civil discourse, scholars with a strong interest in public values and how they can be changed, and experts in organizing community discussion about hotly contested issues.
- Strengthening the Knowledge Base for Effective Programs
It is critically important that the National Campaign be grounded in the best information and research available, especially on the question of program effectiveness.
- To Import Machines that Assist In Condom Distribution, so that youths can purchase condoms conveniently and discreetly
TAYOA in collaboration with young people living with HIV will put pay condom dispensers in social public places in Dar es Salaam and later on to all 6,500 villages of Tanzania for easy access by young people, enabling access of condoms without the fear of discovery which often occurs when purchasing in pharmacies and supermarkets, promotion of friendly slogan for condoms and use of body language.
TAYOA will source and set up automatic condom dispensing machines beginning in Temeke, Ilala and Kinondoni and expanding to social areas e.g. bars, youth clubs, discothèques and public toilets. The cost for this will be 100 Tsh per male condoms and 300 per female condoms. It is hoped that this will make it easier for young people to access condoms without the fear of discovery which often occurs when purchasing in pharmacies and supermarkets and promotion of friendly slogan for condoms - which will help young people who goes to pharmacies and fail to ask for condoms because of shyness, through street slogan is easy to use body language as effective communication in demand for condoms.
- To Produce YouthsConcernCareSolidarity Video Tapes / TV and Radio programmes
The workshops will be filmed using TAYOA's own equipment and any necessary hired additional equipment with the advice and support of professional consultants. Participants from the workshops will be invited to collate these materials and to combine this with ideas and approaches suggested by existing video materials e.g. Love Life, This Adolescent Thing.
This material will need to be altered in line with Tanzanian culture and society and re-acted in Swahili by the participants. Participants from the workshops will therefore be developing their awareness and skills.
Four videos will be produced covering the four main topics of the workshops:
- Physiological facts about AIDS.
- Decision making, consequences of choice, values in relationships and dealing with pressure.
- Different attitudes to love and sex
- Practical strategies that can be implemented within the community to develop AIDS awareness.
Videos produced will be used in workshops and also distributed to buses working out of Ubungo National Bus Station to support the aims of the HIV/AIDS Educational Information Centre established by TAYOA at Ubungo. The value of video lies in the fact that it can be used as a consistent method of information transfer.
In addition, it is hoped that these videos will prove attractive to local television broadcasters and could be shown on Tanzanian television.
Links have been established with a youth television programmes producer from TVT and Radio Tanzania (RTD). With this in mind, YouthsConcernCareSolidarity Project videos could be produced and broadcast through an existing programme Twende na Wakati that is currently broadcast through RTD.
The material from the video / TV programmes and workshops will be transferred into radio scripts by participants who will determine content, present, produce and host programmes. Thus developing their awareness and skills.
These programmes will then be promoted to existing radio stations e.g. radio Tanzania, for broadcasting whilst TAYOA's Community YouthFM Radio station is being developed.
Tapes of the radio broadcasts will be produced and will be distributed free to all 370 buses using Ubungo National Bus Station, 500 daladalas, and to all 13 Radio Stations, 2,500 Secondary Schools, 200 Religious Organizations, 3000 Political Parties Branches, 800 NGOs, CBOS and 3000 for Primary Schools in Tanzania and Zanzibar.
It is predicted that work on each video / TV and radio programme project will take up one day per week with a final product being produced after four weeks and approximately eight participants involved on each.
- To make HIV/AIDS Orphans and Youths Living with HIV Internet fundraising website to enable them purchase life prolonging drugs and give young people opportunity to talk freely and express their concerns without fear and shame through free toll telephone line
The YouthsConcernCareSolidarity Project will work with WILMA to develop HIV/AIDS Orphans and Youths Living with HIV Internet fundraising website to link them with drugs and vaccination research and promote them to start Self Support Enterprises. This will empower the growing number of HIV/AIDS orphans and young people living with HIV access drugs and support their lives on their own, since the community is not able to copy. Also through collaboration with WILMA we will have Internet Fundraising website which will act as a linkage between the Orphans and Young People Living with HIV with the Good Sponsors, who may like to support them emotional and material.
We will educate through YouthsConcernCareSolidarity Project Hotline that young woman and men are equal and encourage young women not to feel shy to talk about their sexual behavior changes. All three major telephone operators in Tanzania, that is VODACOM, MOBITEL and TTCL will be approached to offer one free line which will be place at the HIV/AIDS Education Centre in Ubungo with two counsellors who will answer and help all people with questions about HIV/AIDS.
The YouthsConcernCareSolidarity AIDS Project Hotline will give young people opportunity to talk freely and express their concerns without fear and shame through free toll telephone line.
A database of members of YouthsConcernCareSolidarity Action be kept and they will be encouraged and supported by TAYOA to continue AIDS awareness activities. A record of these activities will be kept by TAYOA and annual awards presented for the most innovative approaches.
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