Peer Facilitator Skills ___________________________________________________
Objectives
By the end of this session, participants will be able to define stigma, describe how young Objectives people experience stigma, and how stigma affects young people’ s access to harm reduction services and HIV treatment. In addition, participants will be able to describe three barriers affecting young people’ s access to harm reduction services.
Expected time of activity: 20 minutes.
Activity
Write the following questions on a big piece of paper or on a board and ask the training Activity participants to answer during a large group discussion:
o What is“ stigma”? o How do young people experience stigma? Have you ever been stigmatised?
Ask participants to share their thoughts for 5 to 10 minutes. After the discussion has taken its course and people around the room have had an opportunity to learn what others think, pose the following two questions on a big piece of paper or on a board. Make sure that nobody from the group has seen these questions during the first part of the activity:
o How might young people experience stigma when they are a drug user, sex worker and / or HIV positive? o How are people living with HIV, drug users or sex workers described by some people?
Open up the discussion again and allow another 5 to 10 minutes for the group to discuss these two questions. If the discussion needs some prompts to get going, ask the group to list some of the names that drug users or sex workers are called. You may write these words on a big piece of paper or on a board and then ask participants to reflect