2•PART ONE: INTRODUCTION TO THE LIFE SKILLS EDUCATION TOOLKIT
Why was the Life Skills Education
Toolkit developed?
that worked with children living in shelter homes,
the streets, communities, and urban and rural red
light areas. Children involved included those living
with parents with HIV or orphaned by AIDS,
children of sex workers, and those from
marginalized communities or migrant populations.
For the purpose of this document ‘vulnerable
children’; and children infected and affected by
HIV/AIDS are referred to as OVC.THE NEEDS ARE GREAT—CHILDREN ARE NOW AT
THE CENTER OF THE EPIDEMIC- It is estimated that more than 50 percent of all
new infections affect young people between
the ages of 15 and 29. - In low prevalence areas, there is an urgent
need to target young people to prevent HIV
and address risk behavior. - In places with high rates of HIV infection,
there is an urgent need to address orphans
and vulnerable children. Children are
especially vulnerable when parents are living
with HIV or have died of AIDS.
Family Health International (FHI), through
funding from the United States Agency for
International Development (USAID), works with 37
projects in India reaching approximately 50,000
orphans and vulnerable children (OVC).
Organizations working with OVC expressed a need
to develop a toolkit to provide essential skills for
children in the project areas to prevent them from
acquiring STIs/HIV/AIDS and to help them cope
with HIV infection. Existing Life skills education
manuals were found to deal only with preventive
skills; more was needed to provide critical
information on the coping skills needed for youth
affected by and infected with HIV/AIDS. To
accomplish this goal, FHI commissioned a
consultant to develop this Life Skills Education
Toolkit.
In the Indian context, vulnerable children are those
who are at risk of acquiring HIV and may not be
HIV infected or affected. The Life Skills Education
Toolkit was developed to address the risk of HIV for
vulnerable children; and children infected and
affected by HIV/AIDS. A variety of programs for
children from diverse settings were involved in the
creation of the Toolkit. These included programes