Building a Peer Education System

A system of peer education requires a consensus-building process in which various departments and nongovernmental partners come to agree on what peer education means, what it needs to accomplish in their respective sectors and activities, and how common approaches and joint strategies will result in a stronger, more sustainable set of interlocking programs. It might include:

• Department of Health, with interests in direct use of peer education in community and clinic settings, and supporting peer education in other sectors to improve a range of health outcomes. Typically, DoH involvement would extend to adolescent and reproductive health, HIV/AIDS, maternal and child health, health promotion, substance abuse and mental health, injury prevention, and other divisions;
• Department of Education, which would be in charge of the use of peer education in schools for preventive education as well as for providing support for orphans and vulnerable children;
• Department of Social Development, which typically has multiple divisions concerned with children's health and welfare;
• Department of Corrections, which has responsibility for the health promotion and disease prevention among incarcerated and adjudicated youth;
• The higher education sector, charged with protecting the health of students, faculty and staff, and with serving as the knowledge and career training industry for the country;
• Nongovernmental organizations and community-based organizations involved in health, sport and recreation, culture, governance, and other functions which involve youth and which depend for their success on the health of their constituents;
• Faith-based organizations, central to the lives of so many families and youth both as providers of formal education and as centers of spiritual life, which constitute an enormous reservoir of adult volunteerism and physical resources and can focus on appropriate prevention education as well as support for affected children and families;
• Corporate entities that want to provide worksite-based peer education to employees and their families;
• Donors and funders, within and external to government, who are responsible for ensuring that their funds are effectively spent.

The process of getting broad agreement across these sectors and departments is gradual and painstaking. Each has its own priorities. All too often, they do not work smoothly together and their immediate budgets and pressures make it difficult to coordinate even when they have common interests. Forging a peer education system in this fragmented but common situation (whether national, provincial, or local in scale) requires champions who believe in the goals of this process.