UNITE FOR CHILDREN UNITE AGAINST AIDS

January 1, 2008

Back to School

Happy New Year! It is January 2008…the holidays are over and time for our young people to get back to school.

This school term is very special for UNICEF Jamaica and one of our key partners, the Ministry of Education. This is the second term that the life-skills based ‘Health and Family Life Education’ (HFLE) is being offered in Jamaican schools. Through this revised HFLE, children aged 6 to 15 within the primary and secondary school system (grades 1 through 9) are taught gender and age appropriate life skills in these thematic areas: Eating and Fitness, Self and Interpersonal Relationships, Managing the Environment and Sexuality and Sexual Health.

HIV prevention is part of the theme in the Sexuality and Sexual Health course as well as awareness-building. There is an all-island debate competition on HIV that is solely for children in schools and a group of young people are being supported by UNICEF with a campaign they designed called the “Thumbs Up” Campaign which aims to increase awareness and HIV prevention skills among young people in their schools and communities. In the coming months, we will be spending a lot of time with these young people, training them and working with them to help them share valuable information and skills with their peers. After all, no one can talk to young people better than young people.

So far, UNICEF’s support has ensured that 220 schools with a total of about 50,000 students are offering the subject and within the next three years, all schools will teach HFLE. In 2007, UNICEF-supported community-based projects reached over 40,000 adolescent boys and girls with HIV prevention information and services. With your help, we can extend this reach and further equip our youth to make healthy choices.