Briefing Paper

Young People at Risk of HIV/AIDS in Edo State: What Should We Do?

The HP4RY programme for the young, proved enormous benefits and success. This write up recommended that: 1) Nigeria should continue to seek for international partners in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Together with international bodies, the government should ensure that more projects like HP4RY are funded especially in order to get to the grassroots. 2) It should continue expanding delivery of the FLHE programme in Secondary Schools in Nigeria. 3) Mobilization towards delivery of programming in communities using the AIDS Competent Community model targeted at young persons. 4) Nigeria must increase funding for the HIV/AIDS response especially for the young people. Public-private partnerships are essential to bring HIV/AIDS interventions to more people. 5) Deployment of Youth Corpers to communities specifically to deal with HIV/AIDS programming since youth are more at home with them. 6) The State must recognize the place of the community in the fight against HIV/AIDS by using a Bottom –up approach rather than a top-down syndrome. 7) Teachers should be made to mainstream HIV/AIDS teaching into all subjects in all primary and secondary schools. 8) A policy shift should be developed that recognizes condom education as part of the FLHE curriculum.