Empowered youth to confront HIV-AIDS

            Empowering Youth to confront HIV-AIDS

 Background & Objectives: Pakistan has an unusual young overall population, with sixty-three percent of the country's population below the age of 25 years. In the context of HIV/AIDS prevention, it is especially important to consider that the people who are most likely to become infected in Pakistan are the younger members of society.In order to maintain Pakistan's current situation of "low prevalence/high risk", it is vital that the nation's Youth are provided with the information, skills and tools that they need to protect themselves from becoming infected with HIV.  Life skills based Education Programme (LSBE) is one of the initiative taken by World Population Foundation in this regard with the intension to empower 18000 students with knowledge that can help them learn skills and opt for right choices in their current and future lives. 
Methodology
Pre-intervention evaluation of LSBE programme study and A Quantitative assessment of student’s understanding about ways of prevention from HIV-AIDS.
WPF implemented its LSBE programme in 6 different cities with youth of schools in all four provinces.
Results;
The HIV-AIDS Module was developed because the data of Pre-test with students revealed that only 24% students know the ways to protect themselves from HIV-AIDS. LSBE curriculum included HIV module was developed and tested with students. At the end of the curriculum delivery post-test was taken from 17306 students and result was that 96% could identify major ways of prevention from HIV/AIDS. Data revealed that 76%students identified by using sterilized syringe, 65% by using tested blood, 57% by using safe sexual relation, 36% by using new razor/blades and 23% identified by using sterilized medical instrument can protect them from HIV prevention.
Conclusion & Policy relevance This Model presents evidence for policy reforms to include HIV-AIDS Education in Pakistan’s core curriculum.