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The Lao Youth Action Programme (LYAP) was established in 2000.
Three Laotians who had recently graduated from university had the initial idea
and created the basis for an interactive school-based AIDS education program,
working in a culturally sensitive manner for a socially conservative country
like Laos. The idea grew and gradually obtained recognition and funding from
international agencies.
LYAP now boasts a staff of twelve and has approximately 60
active volunteers.
LYAP’s interactive peer-led programs educate vulnerable young
people and PLHIV about HIV transmission and promote prevention by empowering
them to take responsibility for their own behaviour and health. LYAP aims to
give young people a belief in their own abilities and a desire to participate in
civil society by addressing AIDS and other health issues.
LYAP reaches boys and girls in roughly equal numbers and
has a specific outreach program for gay, bisexual and transgender people. These
groups rely on LYAP for long-term HIV/AIDS, sexuality and reproductive health
information that is hard to access elsewhere in Lao society. Although short-term
programs are available, LYAP’s long-term approach that focuses on behaviour,
attitudes, cultural norms and self-esteem is unique in the area.
In addition to prevention programs, LYAP undertakes care and
support for people already affected with HIVAIDS. This includes peer-to-peer
counselling, that takes place in the hospitals where patients are attending
treatment, and also in self-help groups that extend their scope to include the
social and economic consequences of HIV infection. It also includes a positive
prevention program that promotes the importance of early HIV testing among
vulnerable groups and delivers safe sex awareness messages to the potential
partners of already-infected people. The positive prevention program extends to
informing infected people how to recognise TB symptoms and access healthcare
treatment, and how to prevent TB infection within their partners, extended
families and work colleagues.
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