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“Non-Formal Education to Attain Sustainable Livelihoods
for Marginalized Youth Exposed to Drug Misuse”
Since 2002, the European Commission has been supporting UNESCO to develop
comprehensive strategies aimed at mitigating the negative impacts of poverty and
illiteracy among particularly marginalized populations, more especially youth
and young adults who do not have access to appropriate learning and
empowerment opportunities through the formal education system and find
themselves in particularly difficult contexts of vulnerability fueled by social and
economic exclusion, particularly in relation to HIV/AIDS and drug misuse.
Within this framework, the educational response promoted by UNESCO is part of
a holistic approach aimed at addressing the various needs of particularly
marginalized youth groups (street youth, migrants, young mothers, sex workers,
drug users, people living with HIV and AIDS) and the circumstances of their
vulnerability while placing individuals and communities at the centre of the
overall response, thereby nurturing self esteem and empowerment while
providing access to meaningful education and sustainable livelihoods
opportunities, and facilitating access to appropriate treatment and care services
when necessary (mainly through referrals).
In this perspective, the programme engages with community-based organizations
and local networks of service providers in a variety of locally relevant
interventions utilizing non-formal education to promote behavior change,
inclusion and sustainable development. In this sense, the programme integrates
HIV/AIDS prevention, artistic development and communication, vocational
training and micro-credit, as well as literacy and basic education running as
transversal themes throughout the initiatives.
Community-based interventions include for instance:
1) Awareness raising and prevention information about drug misuse, HIV/AIDS
and other locally relevant issues (such as violence, alcohol, gender, socio
economic vulnerability) through innovative non-formal education mechanisms
that ensure an equitable access to information for all, with a focus on illiterate
populations among marginalized youth communities.
Examples:
 Community-based training centre and circus school in a rural area of
Cambodia, where youth are trained to develop and perform prevention
shows on the platform of a train during the various stops, and inside the
train, all along the way between Battambang and Phnom Penh.
 Puppet theatre group formed by young beneficiaries of a drop-in centre in
Delhi to develop prevention performances and act on the streets to spread
prevention information and facilitate post-show discussion workshops.
 Network of people living with HIV and AIDS in Dominican Republic
establishing self-support groups for drug users living with HIV and AIDS,
and creating a theatre troupe to undertake prevention interventions in
various settings.
2) Life skills interventions in order to build safe and enabling environments that
provide a favourable context for attaining empowerment and sustainable
livelihoods.
Examples:
 Life skills enhancement, employment preparedness, and entrepreneurial
development programme in Barbados, where mainly single young mothers
of underprivileged areas have access to meaningful and flexible learnship
and placement programmes in cooperation with local artisans and
employers, as well as to micro-credit facilities for establishing their own
business.
 Youth club established in a violent and deprived urban area in Jamaica
where youth have access to recreational and life skills training
opportunities (including computer lab).
The programme was initiated in South Asia (Cambodia, India) and in the
Caribbean (Barbados, Trinidad, Dominican Republic, Jamaica) and has been
extended to Latin America (Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, Costa Rica) with the
additional support of UNAIDS. Two projects have also been supported in Uganda
and South Africa.
The programme seeks to ultimately demonstrate good practices and inform
policy development, promoting the value of non-formal education for creating
new synergies among practitioners and service providers, and reducing
vulnerabilities and harm associated to drug misuse, HIV/AIDS and poverty
among marginalized youth communities. A DVD and case studies will be
published by the end of 2006 to document the different experiences.