Youth Outreach Mentors (YOM) is a project founded by volunteer alum Devon de Leña. YOM aims to empower, inspire, and educate youth on HIV/AIDS prevention as well as promote healthy lifestyle practices for HIV positive people.
While volunteering with Namunyak Maasai Welfare, Mama Maria Kenya, and Mama na Dada Africa in 2007, Devon facilitated girls’ empowerment workshops with six different schools. She says that “most of the kids were begging for information on their bodies, sex and AIDS … and I was shocked by the myths and misinformation the kids had about their health.”
The mission and purpose of this project is to create teams of Kenyan youth and educate them on HIV/AIDS, health education and gender equality so that they may be outreach mentors in their own communities. Devon, along with in-country coordinator Daniel Rateng (formally of Mama na Dada Africa) composed a 30-page HIV/AIDS education manual, with activities for Village Volunteers trainers. “The idea is that any village volunteer interested in working with youth or in HIV education, can have this manual in-hand to use to create new outreach teams … and hopefully the knowledge will ripple outwards” says Devon.
Caroline Cardosi, a 2007 Kenya alum, is the first trainer and will be returning to Kenya in August 2008. Caroline will be there for five months and will create 10 new YOM groups.
For more information on this project, please visit Village Volunteers’ initiative, Youth Outreach Mentors.