LIFE SKILLS EDUCATION TOOLKIT FOR ORPHANS AND VULNERABLE CHILDREN IN INDIA• 49
If these attitudes are not addressed, facilitators may
unknowingly communicate their prejudices to the
children in the life skills groups.
A useful exercise to highlight gender expectations
and attitudes is to have the male facilitators fill in
the rest of this sentence:
“Women are ____.”
Men should come up with 10 descriptive words that
define women.
Female facilitators should fill in the rest of this sentence:
“Men are_____” by listing 10 descriptive words
that define men. Both groups should then discuss
their findings, and share the attitudes and
prejudices that have been revealed.
Assess this pre-training information, and plan
your training accordingly. Some competencies are
essential before starting work, while others may be
planned as in-service or for on-the-job training
later. It is a good idea to have more than one
training session for facilitators, and future
trainings should be built on feedback and
observation from the field. Facilitators must also
have opportunities for peer interaction and
learning. These are important steps in the capacity
building of facilitators and will affect the quality of
the program.
Peer Education
One method of implementing a Life Skills
Education Program is through peer education. In a
child-to-child approach, when a child takes action,
he/she functions as a peer educator. The child- to-
child approach encourages children to help one
another and contains elements of peer education,
and also includes a number of other strategies such
as having children work in pairs or groups.
Peer education as a formal strategy is highly
structured and involves special training and
continuous support. The training can include the
Child-to-Child Six Steps and active methods of
learning. The peer education strategy should only
be used if appropriate training and support is
available during implementation. High turnover of
peer educators can be expected. Peer education is
less effective with younger children and works best
with older children or young people who can work
with a greater degree of independence.
As an approach, peer education is useful because
young people are influenced most by their peers or
friends. They are more likely to listen to peers than
adults. If peers are trained well, they can act as
positive influences in the lives of young people. In
addition, peer education is effective as a program
strategy. It offers better coverage of the target group,
as peers tend to meet often in a variety of situations.Who is a Peer Educator?
A peer is one who comes from the same group as the
target group. Therefore, the peer must be of a similar
age, sex, social background and have faced the same
problems. For example, a former drug addict would
be an appropriate choice for a peer education
program for children coping with substance abuse.
The terms peer education, peer counseling and peer
information are often confused. Peer information
generally means peers giving information on a
single occasion such as participating in an event or
distributing leaflets.
Peer education involves carrying out a number of
activities with groups of children over a period of time.
Peer counseling involves one-to-one counseling and
providing intense support.