Life skills education for orphans and vulnerable children in India
29 October 2008
Education in life skills has recently become a vital component in HIV programmes in India, particularly for young people. The complex range of issues associated with HIV that young people face such as dealing with vulnerabilities about their own or their parents status, peer pressure and stigmatisation, media exposure, and gender inequality, has led to increasing support over the last decade for the teaching of life skills.
Alliance India has initiated a life skills education (LSE) training programme in September for all its counsellors in the states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Manipur and Maharashtar involved in the child-centred home and community-based care and support project CHAHA (meaning a “wish” in Hindi). The training was intended to strengthen the counsellors’ confidence in running life skills education with orphans and other vulnerable children enrolled under the programme.
The programme’s coordinators felt that these children could benefit significantly from learning life skills in order to better equip them to deal with the harsh realities of life that they face, from discrimination both at school and in the community through to the sickness and death of family members.
Training centred on a manual developed by Family Health International which consisted of a number of different interactive games and participatory learning tools. The programme covered sessions on life skills such as communication, relationship building and decision-making. More generally, the participants were given instruction on good facilitation skills including tips on ice-breaking and managing expectations. Some practice sessions were also held on growing up, preventing HIV, coping with emotions, and substance abuse.
