Primary prevention programs need to make special efforts to gain access to these young people and to understand and respond to their particular needs. This can often be achieved through mobilizing volunteers and street educators, as UNAIDS, the UN International Drug Program, and Street Kids International have done when working with street children in Asia.”
-- Kofi A. Annan, Secretary General of the United Nations
street health
we engage and empower kids
Our street
health programs focus on working with local organizations
and youth workers to engage street kids in making informed choices
about sexual health, HIV/AIDS and drug use. The choice by street
kids to use drugs or engage in risky sexual practices is made in
an environment where obvious answers and simple choices don’t
exist. Street kids are constantly balancing short-term coping
strategies against potential risks and future consequences of their
actions and decisions.
Street Health training enables front-line workers to engage kids in taking responsibility for their own experience with sex, drugs, and other associated factors of life on the street. Our training promotes a shift away from the worker as “expert advisor” and street kid as “dependent client” to a relationship that respects kids’ ability to realistically define their own goals and objectives. We equip workers to begin with kids “where they are” and help them move towards lives of risk prevention and health promotion. Our key training tools are the Karate Kids and Goldtooth animated stories about street kids confronting health and safety issues.
