CASA's Básicos PromotersGrassroots Outreach and Education on the State Level
CASA's signature service is adolescent peer-to-peer teen counseling. CASA teen counselors work on a daily basis in some 24 unique, rural villages that have been chosen because of their difficult accessibility and conditions that are below poverty level. The young promotores have been carefully trained to interact with village youth in discussions about reproductive health, general health, human rights and local environmental issues that impact the health of their communities.
The underlying philosophy for the CASA adolescent health education and outreach program is that through individual empowerment and education, young people, especially young women, will take pride in their human and their reproductive rights. Through that education, decisions will be made to avoid unwanted and unplanned pregnancies. With this knowledge and newly gained self-esteem, the peer-to-peer counselor will be able to work in the community, providing sexual and health education to other adolescents, in an overall effort to build a sense of community responsibility.
CASA's peer-to peer counselor program is a service model, a conjunction of steps taken with adolescent single mothers and their children, and other unemployed youth - using a gender perspective. Internal feedback and repeated outside evaluations have shown that these same steps could be taken by other public and private organizations interested in strengthening the most disadvantaged youth of a country.
I was ignorant of so many things when I began working at CASA. But in short time, I learned all I know about civil rights and sexual health. It was engaging work, and apart from all of the knowledge I gained, I learned the importance of womanhood - the valor that a woman has - and the first time I went to the countryside it was something altogether different for me, because not only could I share with them the experience I had received at CASA, but I had opened up enough to learn from them as well. Hayde Alejandra Guerrero Morales
2006 CASA Básicos Promoter Nevermind internal feedback, repeated outside evaluations of CASA's peer counselor program conclude that it is a service model: a conjunction of steps that could be taken by other public and private organizations interested in strengthening the most disadvantaged youth of a country - the single mothers and their children, unemployed youth - using a gender perspective.
How exactly does the peer counselor program work?
Since 1981 young people have come from rural villages, from marginal urban neighborhoods and occasionally from more affluent circumstances to CASA's adolescent drop-in center because they are needy, confused and have heard through the grapevine that CASA will help them and not judge them.
Hiring priority is given to the adolescent mom. A young person who enters as a peer at CASA is provided with a stipend equivalent to minimum wage; given medical attention, child care for children under age 6, counseling services, vocational training and the opportunity to continue their formal education, usually through equivalency programs. This relationship can continue for as long as two years during which time each individual youth is trained in reproductive health, environmental science and community organizing. Peer counselors who excel are given the opportunity to become program coordinators and can stay in these positions for up to five years if they continue their studies.
The peer is expected to help him or herself, his or her child if they are parents and help others. More than 680 teens have gone through the program and annually they reach some 30,000 people, providing education and family planning and working on collaborative projects including the building of latrines, fuel-efficient stoves and community gardens.
Conclusion:
A horizontal program from youth to youth, equal to equal, CASA's peer program does not discriminate against those who could not go to school. Rather, it gives opportunities to young people to strengthen and train themselves as well as others. At CASA's peer counselor program, young people can grow and have jobs that would be denied to them elsewhere for being women and mothers without a higher education or because they come from a disadvantaged socio-economic group. CASA is a starting point for the creation of dreams and aspirations. The group experience infuses them with enthusiasm and allows them to discover their human potential.
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Básicos peer counselors make an average of 8,000 house visits a year, making contacts and helping to promote family planning and education. Our promoters invite their new clients to town-wide meetings held weekly in community centers, or open public spaces. There, the adolescent peer counselors address issues ranging from how to plant and maintain a nutritional, functional garden, to sexuality, anatomy, sexually-transmitted diseases, and methods of protection and family planning.
The Básicos team also gives classes at elementary, middle, and high schools. Here, an Elementary School class discusses how sexual education can be taught negatively, and then looks at positive alternatives. The curriculum they follow is one they and their predecessors have designed - guided by constant research and by trained health-care professionals. A comprehensive manual for peer counselors in Spanish is currently under revision, and will be made available to other organizations at little or no cost. Following conceptually from an earlier CASA manual, the new manual will include the most up-to-date information, as well as a more approachable organization. For more information about the manual, or an advanced copy, contact the current interns.
In addition to door-to-door visits, sexual education classes, family planning consultations, and the distrubution of free family planning methods, the Básicos team also runs a number of environmental programs including sustainable garden growth, trash pick-up, reforestation campaigns, and the construction of rural latrines.
Básicos Promoters Help Design and Plant Sustainable, Edible Gardens |
