HIPE (Healthy Initiatives through Peer Education) is a peer health education initiative of the 501 C3 VANGO Network Vietnamese American NonGovernmental Organization. HIPE is centered on an innovation peer-education model for school-aged youths that infuses creative teaching and leadership training in health education, disease prevention, disaster prevention, and community mobilization within Vietn
am’s poorest communities. Throughout the year HIPE trains students to become Peer Health Educators (PHEs) with leadership capacity & skills to be confident and productive youths serving their communities’ health needs. We successfully trained 18 health educators from 3 rural schools and 3 orphanages in the end of 2010. After 3 years HIPE engaged our fellow students in the topics of personal hygiene, to***co bad effects, disease prevention and environmental protection; from 2014, reproductive health has been taught in HIPE site and 2015 was exceptional with furthering growth and maturity seen among HIPE youths and collaboration beyond HIPE teams to bring about more health and community outreach activities on reproductive health. Until now, we have trained 90 health educators from 33 schools and 5 orphanages. HIPE is a familiar name among schools and communities in Thua Thien Hue Province as HIPE has pushing its health education program into villages by collaborating with other youth-led non-governmental organizations such as Bup Sen Hong and Nguoi Viet Tre. Faces of HIPE youths have been captured and posted on pages of youth-led organizations or on local media when they were leading or working side by side with other youths on reproductive health education or community-service activities. Stronger partnerships are also keys to HIPE’s success. Reasons contributing to stronger partnerships include more informational meetings were conducted and training sessions targeting partners and community members were organized. Furthermore, community-wide, there is more of a recognize needs of SRH in schools for youths. Both representatives from the Center of School Health and Center for Community Health Education & Communication approached HIPE to bring SHR to more schools. These partners are more willing to assist in implementing and co-operating HIPE when necessary. Moreover, this direction has allowed for more efficiency of HIPE operations and activities expanding into Universities and other junior and high school student populations of risk. In addition to expansion with efficiency and collaborative efforts, this direction allows for delivery of sexual reproductive health education to more students and to achieve better sustainability for HIPE. Finally, we are at the wonderful juncture because not only HIPE has proven that youths, when given the opportunities and support, do blossom into effective young leaders and be change agents of their communities and lead beneficial lives, but the formal recognition of HIPE youths in their capacities as Peer Health Educators who are now joining, co-leading, and co-teaching SRH sessions at Universities with key recognizable community figures such as the Director of Center for Community Health Education and Communication and the Director of the Center of School Health. This recognition is the endorsement and ultimate validation for HIPE program and youths!
