Written by Admin on May 20th, 2015 in

Peer education for HIV prevention among newly recruit military of Viet Nam – partner with Military Medical Department (MMD)

Duration: 2009-2012

PHAD undertook an immense task in providing technical support to the military – designing, educating, and distributing military-appropriate educational materials, to peer educators and new recruits over a period of one year. Reproductive health and HIV education in the military camps is proven to be an arduous task, due to sensitive national security. Therefore, PHAD partnered with the Military Medical Department, approved by the Ministry of Defense, to carry-out the education plan. PHAD conducted technical meetings/discussions to review and revise the training curriculum, including PE training text books, survey documents, questionnaiers, relevant IEC materials design/content. PHAD also provided necessary communication equipment and materials, for the implementation of the program.

PHAD strategically divided the project into two phases to ensure its effectiveness:

Phase I – Learning the Military’s functioning system with assistance from our partners. During the first phase, we allocate our time to train 30 military medical personnel on the methodology of conducting pre and post survey, which will be used to survey a pool of 3,000 new recruits regarding knowledge, attitude, behaviors, and practice (KABP).

Additionally, we hold 7 trains of trainers’ sessions for 245 educators, who will impart their skills to train 2,100 peer educators, who will conduct 8,400 peer education sessions to 25,000 new recruits across all 7 Military Regions and Special Forces, over a three-month period.

Phase II – Using experiences and lessons learned from the previous recruitment, PHAD will duplicate its educational outreach to the next round of new recruits with modifications to improve the quality of service.

Infrastructure strengthening was undertaken along with support for establishment of linkage between military and civilian for post-service conscript soldiers to participate in and have access to community-based services on HIV prevention and care.