by Tom Morgan

14 August 2002

Bonn, Germany: Vilay Panyaphone stuck his behind out, flapped his arms and strutted around the room like a half-man, half-chicken. The reason? Drugs.

But not because Vilay had taken any. Rather, he gave the wrong answer in a quiz about drug abuse. His good-natured punishment was to do the "chicken dance" - much to the amusement of everyone around him.

This activity was part of a workshop on health education for youth organized through the Lao Youth Union in conjunction with the United Nations Volunteers (UNV).

The event, held in Luang Prabang from 24 July to 1 August, brought young people together from across the northern provinces. The 32 participants learned about relevant health issues, focusing on the dangers of HIV/AIDS and drug abuse. The same training was recently held in Pakse for young people from the southern provinces.

"Where I live most young people have heard about HIV/AIDS and drugs, but they don't know much about them," said Vilay, 25, from Bokeo province. "We need to provide them with more information."

Enabling the participants to do just that was the principle aim of the workshop.

Dyinphone Phonethoma, 25, who had travelled for three days from Houaphan province to attend the workshop, said that he was keen to take what he had learnt back to his district.

"In my village no-one has ever stood up in front of the young people and explained to us about these issues. Now I can do that," he said.

Danielle Stafford, the UNV Health Peer Educator who led the workshop, said she was very impressed with the performance of the participants.

"Undoubtedly it's been a challenge," she said. "Some of the more technical activities have been new to them. But they have learned a lot of factual information, and achieved skill development in communicating with others and in coming up with creative solutions for problem solving."

The idea is that the participants will now return home and make good use of what they have learned. "I'm hoping they can begin by having discussions with decision makers, to give them a platform so that they can share information with other young people," said Danielle.

To encourage sustainability in the project, the workshop used Lao trainers (peer educators) from Vientiane's Lao Youth Centre for Health and Development, who also transferred some of their skills to create a new generation of trainers.

"The trainers had a chance to use the skills they have in team building and group discussions," said Danielle. "These are really important in a workshop like this where people have to feel comfortable before they share their thoughts."

Health education initiatives such as this workshop have been undertaken as part of the project, "Skills Training for Youth in Lao PDR", executed by UNV in cooperation with the Lao Youth Union and funded by the Government of Japan.

Mr. Khamla Xaytha, Director General of the Lao Youth-Child Development Department of the Lao Youth Union, said that health education is an important component of the vocational training project. "We are providing instruction in a range of skills including handicraft production, fish farming and English language. But we are also making sure that young people know about the dangers of HIV/AIDS and drugs, so that their lives are not put at risk," he said.

Kemphone Vilaykham, 24, another participant from Bokeo province, said that health education for young people is vital. "If young people are ignorant about health issues it can cause a lot of problems. They just do whatever they want, without knowing what will happen," she said.

Kemphone said that she thinks all the workshop participants have an important job to do. "We can now make a difference to the problems that affect young people where we live," she said.