Andy Nziengui
Education - Gabon (West Africa)
Andy Nziengui is from Gabon and has been working to reduce early pregnancies and HIV/AIDS while supporting at-risk you females to remain in school. Through his organisation, Association Internationale des Jeunes Francophones (A.I.J.F), Andy increased general sensitivity to HIV/AIDS issues. He also has worked on heightening the debate and personal/collective consciousness of the issue through conferences in schools and sex education classes to eliminate taboos.
Andy was selected to go to the 2005 Pan-African Youth Leadership Summit in Morocco where he participated in development of projects related to Morocco’s Development Goals, focussing on the areas of Sport and Culture as tools for peace.
Future plans for Andy include coordinating a group of delegates to travel to regional areas to educate and raise awareness among young people on the risks of HIV/AIDS. Upon returning, a committee will be formed to bring together young participants through online discussions with the use of internet technology.
Case Study: The Awareness Caravan
Gabon has a problem with low female education rates, as many women get pregnant at a young age and drop out of school. HIV/AIDS has devastating impacts in many areas of life, and young women are particularly at risk. Andy has been addressing these related issues by running workshops for young people on sexual and reproductive health, targeted primarily at young women.
To reach as many people as possible Andy coordinated a tour of the different provinces of Gabon in an ‘Awareness Caravan’. The workshops look at HIV/AIDS, safe sex and contraception.. So far, the caravan has reached 5 cities out of the 9 planned. Each of the workshops managed to reach as many as 1500 people.
One important factor in the success of the workshops has been the involvement of local organizations. As a member of L’Association Internationale des Jeunes Francophones (AIJF, International Association of Young Francophones), Andy has partnered with local branches who are actively working in high schools to help him organise the workshops. The arrival of the caravan was carefully prepared and publicised by the local representatives in each city. After the workshops, the local branches continued to promote the issues raised at the workshop. They monitored behavioural changes in their local communities by tracking the numbers of young women who left school due to early pregnancies. The information gathered revealed a considerable reduction in the rate of early pregnancies. Andy believes that the caravan contributed to this reduction as the schools that have not been visited by the caravan report a high rate of early pregnancies.
Andy made sure that the workshops had other relevant support, inviting experts and using documents from UNICEF and UNDP as handouts. Condoms are distributed during the workshops
In follow-up workshops, Andy has involved young people affected by the disease as speakers. He says this helped reinforce the impact of the workshops, and had the benefit of helping those affected by HIV/AIDS work to overcome some of the stigma they face in the community.
Many previous attempts to raise awareness around HIV/AIDS in Gabon were not successful because they failed to engage the audience by using language that was not appropriate, too technical or too boring. Keeping that in mind, Andy constructed his message in simple terms, using language targeted at young people. This helped him to overcome the taboo around the issue of sexuality.
The participants are encouraged to pass on the message to their families, friends and communities. Some participants decided to use the HIV/AIDS theme in their arts production. For example, one participant decided to create cartoons on the subject..
Young people at the workshops expressed a need for a sexual education program in schools. Andy has responded to this need by contactingpeople from the government. The ‘Awareness Caravan’ is now become a part of a wider campaign for the introduction of sexual education programs in schools in Gabon. At the moment, however, the government says that it needs to train educators first. He hopes however the high levels engagement and participation in the conferences should compel the government to look more closely at the issue.
