ISAAC GOLD is offering a life saving learning opportunity to students. Students are placed in the role of educators for the very important task of preventing negative behavours among themselves and their classmates. Peer education is based on the reality that many people make changes not only based on what they know but on the opinions and actions of their close, trusted peers. Peer educators can serve as role models for change. Peer educators are typically the same age or slightly older than the group with whom they are working. They can run educational activities on their own and actually take the lead in implementing school-based activities. They help raise awareness, provide accurate information and help their classmates develop skills to change behavour.
Some of the ways they are doing this in schools include:
- Leading informal discussions
- One-on-one time talking with fellow students
- Offering support and referral to services
Peer educators are used because:
- Young people appreciate and are influenced in positive ways by a peer-led intervention if it is well-designed and properly supervised.
- Serving as a peer educator provides a challenging, rewarding opportunity to young people to develop their leadership skills, gain the respect of their peers, and improve their own knowledge base and skills.
- Peer educators often change their own behaviour after becoming a peer educator.
- It can foster fulfilling relationships between teachers and students.
- It can give girls legitimacy to talk about sex without the risk of being stigmatised as sexually promiscuous (particularly when peer led activities take place in single-sex groups)
- Peer educators can provide a valuable link to health services
- Peer educators have shown in some cases to be more effective than adults in establishing norms and in changing attitudes related to sexual behaviour. However, they are not necessarily better in transmitting factual health information. Peer educators and adult-led education can thus complement each other.