The goal of SAAF’s Community Education Program is to educate the community about HIV/AIDS through peer-to-peer support, community outreach, and educational presentations. SAAF provides training and distributes information on HIV/AIDS throughout several communities in Southern Arizona though the Community Education volunteers. Most requests for speakers come directly from agencies, schools, and community organizations that are specifically looking for information about HIV/AIDS, prevention strategies, or that have general health-related curricula. The program consists of three levels of trainings for volunteers.

 

HIV Overview for Community Education

 

This training will teach the participant about:

• HIV infection, transmission, prevention and testing

• The most common bacterial and viral sexually transmitted infections

• The connection between substance use and HIV infection

• The lifecycle of HIV and the human immune system

• How medications disrupt the lifecycle of HIV

• Viral hepatitis, the liver, treatments and connection to HIV

• Introduce the harm reduction philosophy and behavior change model

• Skill building on speaking with your peers about their sexual health

 

This training is highly interactive to fit with a variety of learning styles and will give the participant a basic understanding of HIV and prepare the participant to speak with their family and friends about the virus.

Outreach Educator

This training will teach the participant:

• Awareness of culture, ethnicity and race when conducting outreach and presenting to groups from backgrounds other than your own

• Preparing for and conducting outreach

• Creating and building relationships with community leaders

• Getting to know your target audience

• Skill building and practicing outreach

 

Once the participant has completed this training, they’ll be able to assist staff and other trained volunteers in conducting outreach at testing events, social service agencies, community health fairs, and other locations where target populations can be reached.

 

Community Educator

 

This training will teach the participant about:

• Different methods of giving a presentation

• Effective presentation techniques

• How to assess your audience

• How to handle problematic situations and disruptive participants

• The importance of audience evaluations

• How to plan and prepare an effective HIV 101 presentation

• Skill building and practicing giving an HIV 101 presentation

 

This training prepares the participant to give effective HIV Overview presentations, with the assistance of SAAF staff and other trained volunteers, to community groups, high school and college classes and SAAF’s volunteer orientations.

 

HIV Overview Presentations are provided for secondary schools, colleges, universities, and other groups by Community Education Volunteers. These sessions include definitions of HIV and AIDS and information on risk reduction, modes of transmission, and how HIV/AIDS affects the immune system. About 30 HIV Overview presentations are made each year, reaching over 600 community members, including 300 young people.

 

Living With HIV/AIDS Presentations are provided for secondary schools, colleges, universities, and other groups. These sessions take a more personal approach to HIV prevention by having a person living with HIV/AIDS tell their story and convey the message of self-protection. Testing information and statistics are updated on a regular basis to most accurately reflect currently available services and trends. About 30 such presentations are made each year, reaching over 1,200 people, including 700 youth.

 

Information Booths staffed by Outreach Educators are provided at health fairs and other community events. Pamphlets are available on myths about HIV, modes of transmission, HIV testing, and SAAF’s services. Materials at info booths are tailored for young adults to senior citizens depending on the expected audience. About 50 info booths are held each year, reaching over 3,000 people, including 2,000 youth.

 

Below are comments from individuals who attended an HIV 101 presentation from one of SAAF’s Community Educators:

 

• “I enjoyed the explanation about how HIV works in the immune system…I

learned the most from this aspect of the presentation.”

• “Amazing – really covered the info well – A great spokesperson.”

• “Very interesting, learned a lot about HIV and AIDS and how it’s transmitted.”

• “It was the best I’d ever attended.”