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In Kenya and Tanzania, HIV/AIDS Education Addresses Risky Behaviors Among Youth
31 Mar 2009 20:59:00 GMT
 Source: Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) International
Nadia McGill

Website: Website: http://www.adra.org

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ADRA is reaching more than one million youth through its ABY project in the Lake Victoria region of Tanzania and Kenya.
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ADRA is reaching more than one million youth through its ABY project in the Lake Victoria region of Tanzania and Kenya.
ADRA International

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SILVER SPRING, Md.--In East Africa, the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) is extending its five-year Abstinence and Behavior Change (ABY) program in Kenya and Tanzania for an additional nine months, in order to reach an additional 72,000 youth and young adults with life-saving HIV education and prevention methods.

ABY is a $12 million project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) that teaches youth about the dangers associated with high-risk sexual behavior, such as coercive and transactional sex, and raises awareness about monogamy and voluntary refraining from sexual activities.

"ABY teaches youth to value themselves, and helps them learn to plan for their future," said Max Church, country director for ADRA Tanzania, sharing the story of Dina, a 17-year old participant in the ABY project in Tanzania, who found the confidence to stop exchanging her body for food, after joining the ABY project.

"It's not easy to find food without boyfriends, but I don't want to get HIV," she told ADRA Tanzania. Through ABY, other young people are also learning valuable life skills that give them the confidence they need to avoid risky sexual practices.

The program is being implemented by ADRA in the Lake Victoria region in Tanzania and Kenya under the slogan "Chagua Maisha," which means "Choose Life" in Swahili, and originally targeted 500,000 youth between the ages of 10 and 24 in each country. To date, ADRA has reached an estimated 300,000 youth in Tanzania and more than 600,000 in Kenya through ABY, in addition to 628,000 others through mass media.

The project, which began in 2004, was originally slated to end in September, but has been extended until June 2010.

In order to ensure the successful execution of the project, ADRA partners* with various faith- and community-based organizations, such as the Baraka Good Hope Orphan's Development, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the Anglican Church, and local schools, to provide HIV prevention and life skills training for participating youth.

ADRA is a non-governmental organization present in 125 countries providing sustainable community development and disaster relief without regard to political or religious association, age, gender, race or ethnicity.

For more information about ADRA, visit www.adra.org.

Author: Nadia McGill

*To receive a comprehensive list of ADRA's partnering organizations, please contact ADRA by email at Media.Inquiries@adra.org.


[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]

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[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]

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