Youth WINGS
Watch our Youth WINGS short film featuring our peer educator, Cristian.
In 2005, the Guatemalan government passed the Law on Universal and Equitable Access to Family Planning Services (Decree 87-2005), a measure that calls for universal access to sex education in public schools and and access to free family planning methods for all Guatemalans. Unfortunately, implementation of the law’s provisions related to youth has been slow, and many teachers and health care providers remain unaware of their legal obligations. Furthermore, pervasive socio-cultural barriers, such as a low literacy rate, marked socio-economic inequal
ities and cultural taboos around family planning, contribute to Guatemala having a high adolescent birth rate; 107 in 1,000 girls, ages 15-19 (the Latin American average is 72 in 1,000 girls for the same age group) (The World Bank, 2009). Founded on the belief that access to accurate and comprehensive sexual and reproductive health education is critical to the health and futures of Guatemalan adolescents, the Youth WINGS program trains young people to serve as peer health educators in their communities.
By harnessing the enthusiasm and energy of adolescents and capitalizing on the strong influence young people have on each other, Youth WINGS trains adolescents, ages 14-19, from the departments of Sacatepéquez and Chimaltenango to provide their peers with information on sexual and reproductive health as well as referrals to family planning services when requested. Since the program began, WINGS has trained 380 youth peer educators who have in turn shared information with nearly 56,000 young people. The Program also places emphasis on collaborating with local schools and Guatemala’s Ministry of Education to educate teachers, administrators and other officials on how to deliver accurate and comprehensive sex education in schools. Through this effort, WINGS has trained more than 2,000 school educators and government officials.
In 2011, Youth WINGS is launching a new street theatre and radio outreach initiative. The project will train groups of adolescents in street theater techniques that can be used to educate young people about their sexual and reproductive health rights. The street theater project expands the Youth WINGS programmatic scope by targeting youth who are not currently attending school. In addition, Youth WINGS will be focusing on
training youth to use radio as an educational tool; this initiative has a similar aim as th
e street theater component, to broaden Youth WINGS’ target audience, and involves training youth to creatively deliver messages about sexual and reproductive health using radio.
To learn more about Youth WINGS, please visit our new website specifically for youth: www.jovenesconalas.org.
Read our youth success stories