Into the community and not on the shelf: learning to develop a meaningful HIV/AIDS curriculum for multiple communities

Abstract

This paper describes the process involved in creating a community-based training curriculum designed to build capacity and foster new knowledge in support of HIV/AIDS education. Highlighted are the challenges and triumphs incurred while working with community and academic partners to ensure the production of an adaptable curriculum designed to accommodate diverse teaching and learning styles. The curriculum provides teachers, community leaders and peer educators with knowledge and skills to competently deliver HIV/AIDS information, regardless of previous training in sexual health education. Educators are encouraged to adapt the curriculum according to community/classroom needs. Also highlighted is the need for creating further opportunities that enable teachers, community practitioners and researchers to collaborate around issues that influence learners' lives.

Keywords::

• HIV/AIDS
• community-based education
• curriculum
• Canada

Acknowledgements

This paper describes a project of AIDS Vancouver and M·A·C AIDS Fund. I thank Brian Chittock and the staff at AIDS Vancouver for providing this opportunity to write about the experience. Equally deserving acknowledgement is Educate to Empower's co-author Andrée Gacoin for her consultation and support in the writing and presentation of the manual, as well as the ‘Educate to Empower' team of youth volunteers for their commitment to workshop delivery. I also want to thank Peter Hoong for his assistance with the evaluation of the workshops as described in section ‘Into action’. Finally, I would like to thank our partner organisation YouthCO and all organisations that participated in pilots and shared feedback. We could not have created this curriculum without them. Copies of the curriculum can be downloaded from the Canadian AIDS Treatment Information Exchange website at http://www.catie.ca/en/resources/educate-empower-training-trainers-curriculum.