Health Education Unit

Director – Medex Noel Holder
Tel #: 592 222-4414/4420

Objective

To provide educational support to all health and medical programme activities, including planning and implementing intervention, training of health workers and communities in educational methodology, design and development of educational materials and research into the social and behavioural factors that contribute to health problems.

Mission Statement

To provide educational support to all activities in the health sector through public education, training, and provision of materials.

The Division of Health Sciences Education consists of 3 Sub-Programmes – Health Education, Training and Materials Production.

Health Education and Promotion

Health Education and Promotion is a support service, and as a result, the activities of this unit are dependent on the activities in other programmes. The activities implemented in collaboration with various programmes, namely the Maternal and Child Health Unit, the Department of Communicable Diseases, and Food Policy Unit.

Health Learning Materials Unit

The Health Learning Materials Unit continued to provide resource material through the Production Unit and the Learning Resource Centre to trainees of the Multi-Purpose Technician Training Programme, the Medex Training Programme, the Faculty of Health Sciences Education, the Department of Social Work University of Guyana and the public.

The Role of the Division of Health Sciences Education in empowering “Youths in Difficult Circumstances” through capacity building and behavioural change process.

The Division of Health Sciences Education in Collaboration with Adolescent Health Unit MOH will combine resources in an effort to reduce the dilemmas of some of our youths. The focus with be on youths within ten (10) Communities identified as depressed areas will be funded by the UNFPA project on HIV/AIDS.

Background

Evidence suggests that youths within the age group 15-24 has the highest incidence of HIV/AIDS in Guyana. There is also evidence to support that 38% of female within this said age group are females (USAID 2005) there are 3.0% of pregnant women infected some of whom are in this age group, along with 800 infected children.
There is a morbidity prevalence of 18,000 and Mortality stand greater than 2000 since the discovery of the first confirmed AIDS case in 1987.

There are greater emphasis directed towards the reduction of transmission, prevention and the quality and increased life span of the infected, by the establishment of VTC sites, improved testing capabilities, the awareness and interest of the NGO’s and Faith Base organization, PMTCT programme and the CD4 count assessment.

However while the major focus of transmission are on Blood and Blood products, the Mother to Child transmission, Needle stick injuries obtained from an infected person, unprotected sex and a possibility of deep kissing, what is equally important is for us to focus on the drug problem in Guyana with an aim of identifying its use as a factor to transmission.

There is anecdotal evidence supporting the state of an individual who abused illicit drugs and Alcohol, the judgment is impaired and there is a strong probability that they will be involved in unprotected sex.

The Approach

The Division of Health Sciences Education has a Drug Education/Rehabilitation component; which focus on demand reduction and rehabilitation of the users in a number of regions. We have conducted a number of life skill base training and behavioural change seminars using the Health promotion strategies.

It is important that we intensify our efforts to include HIV/AIDS as part of the programme, since there seems to be a link between drugs use and the transmission of HIV/AIDS.

We are aware that young people living in Difficult Circumstances are at risk of Drug use and also HIV/AIDS.
This new approach will focus on theories on behavior change, the use of health education and health promotion strategies. In this way every youth within the selected communities will be given the opportunity to take action to enhance their quality of life. Every youth will be given an equal chance of participating in the various processes to bring about change.

Output

To reduce the impact of drug use and the concomitant result HIV/AIDS among youth 15-24 years old living in Difficult Circumstances.

Objectives

• To gather information from youth 15-24 years concerning the association of HIV/AIDS and drug use situation
• To create opportunities for enhancing and clarifying of information on HIV/AIDS, and drug use among youth in selected communities
• To equip youth with knowledge and skills to enable them to take action to prevent and control drug use and subsequently HIV/AIDS
• To mobilize youth for planning and implementing community action in the prevention and control of HIV/AIDS and drug use.