Vol. 15, No. 4, Spring 2002

Native Youth Implement Peer Advocacy for Sexual Health

April Lea Go Forth

Sexual health is a topic of vital importance in the United States and in Native communities. The subject makes many people uneasy, but the cost of ignorance can be high. Consider the facts. Data from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) has shown that the United States ranks highest in the following areas: teenage sex before age 15, teenage births before age 20, teens with two or more sexual partners, and teens who do not use birth control or protection methods in sexual encounters. Two thirds of all cases of Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD) in the U.S. occur in those aged 25 years old or younger. HIV/AIDS (Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) is the 6th leading cause of death for ages 15-25 and the highest infection rates are in communities with fewer than 50,000 people. Six percent of all new HIV infections are in the Native community. One out of every ten Native people could be HIV-infected by 2003 at the current rate. California is now the leading state for the number of Native STD/HIV cases in the U.S. and 2,234 of us were diagnosed with AIDS last year.

Having accurate knowledge is key to our decision making. Health providers who are not connected to Native communities have limited service entree to Indian country. In our local community, we noticed that lower staffing levels and low funding levels in rural areas for health, education, and social services were simply not reducing the numbers of unplanned pregnancies and STD/HIV infections among our Native youth. Many of the HIV prevention programs are ill-prepared to move beyond cultural differences, therefore, STD/HIV education and prevention has been ineffective.

In 1999, staff of Resources for Indian Student Education, Inc. (RISE) in Alturas, Modoc County, decided to reach Native youth in the area of sexual health education. RISE, a nonprofit corporation founded in 1995, designed a youth advocacy model called HAWK (Honoring Ancient Wisdom and Knowledge). Financial support for implementation comes through funding from Plumas County Health Services. As an Indian Education Center and key community resource, RISE embraces a philosophy of traditional family values built upon the "honor of one is the honor of all."

Our goal was to affect healthy choices for Native youth through innovative, community-based reeducation. Students determined HAWK’s outreach strategies, which emphasize abstinence over promiscuous sexual activity, avoidance of alcohol/drug use, and cessation of behaviors that place youth at risk for HIV infection. Universal values of the HAWK Project are patterned after traditions which sustain our world - honor, respect, strong community, and healthy choices.

HAWK Peer Advocates who completed training and accepted a role of service leadership were RISE students who were already active in a traditional tobacco project, The Medicine Wheel. Their new goal was to deliver accurate reeducation information on pregnancy and STD/HIV prevention via personal health awareness. Peer Advocates reeducate youth aged 12-20 years of age on risk behaviors using interactive presentations. The HAWK Project is modeled after the successful W.K. Kellogg Foundation's "Young People Creating Community Change." HAWK offers a new prevention approach with Peer Advocates who teach about healthy behavior change in their own communities. Peer Advocates must receive training in health, leadership, research, public presentation, traditions of song and dance, and health service/referral. They each hold positions of service in the community. As middle and high school students they are keenly current with pressures, issues, and influences facing Native youth. They work closely with Elders and adults to receive guidance for appropriate information that can be shared with more diverse age groups.

Peer Advocates on the HAWK team are outstanding as a group and represent a variety of tribal and indigenous backgrounds. As individuals, they are distinguished in additional activities such as traditional dancing and singing, acting, athletics, organizing community events, and participation in programs such as MESA (Math, Engineering, Science Achievement). Young men on the Peer Advocate team include Robert Parrish ( Kashaya Pomo) high school junior; David Toaetolu (Samoan/Aztec) high school sophomore; and Ulysses Chacon (Aztec/Mexicano) currently in the eighth grade. The women of the team include college student Jacie ShadowBear (Choctaw/Cherokee) ; Evelyn Olvera (Pit River/Miwok) high school senior; AnnMarie Sanchez (Paiute/T’hono O’odham) high school freshman; and Lillian Toaetolu (Aztec/Samoan) and Merry Wolfin (Pit River), both eight graders.

The presentations given by this youth team are designed specifically for each audience. Peer Advocates provide incentives and prevention/education handouts to participants. People are active during HAWK; music and movement are important elements in each session. Presentations and trainings with HAWK use games such as Media Influence, Sexual Jeopardy, Behavior Feud, HIV Password, Social Values, and Mingling to teach about risk behaviors, current infection statistics, and personal honor. Peer Advocates AnnMarie Sanchez and Lillian Toaetolu provide detail about some of these exercises. "The Sexual Jeopardy game works kind of like Jeopardy that we see on TV, except the categories include topics such as HIV/AIDs, pregnancy, STDs, and two spirit. Media Influence is an exercise that focuses in on images and how much mainstream media and advertising use sex to sell merchandise or programs such as credit cards and feminine products." In this exercise, the pros and cons of such imagery usage are discussed. In Behavioral Feud, contestants are asked to rate specific sexual behaviors for "risk", "safe", or having a base for "concern". Topics and answers are then followed with pertinent statistics. Referencing familiar, non-threatening formats such as TV game shows, these exercises become engaging and fun for participants while simultaneously delivering important information and prompting group discussion.

The youth presentations have proved quite popular with youth and adults alike. Peer Advocates have shared their message during state and national events, as well conducting workshops at powwows, schools, and Title IX programs. In 2000, HAWK was invited by the California Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs (ADP), Prevention Services Division to attend a Southern California workshop for federal and state community representatives. Held in Riverside, this state summit was a community prevention planning conference to create an environment of core values for youth -adult partnerships, advocacy & leadership, and community & relationship building. The HAWK workshop was attended by professionals in the fields of criminal justice, health, and research. Commissioner Henry Lozano from Executive Office of the President approached the HAWK team with an invitation to participate in the President’s Advisory Commission on Drug-Free Communities.

The next year, the ADP requested HAWK’s participation at VISTA 2001, a conference appealing to state agencies, counties, social service providers, employers, educators, alcohol and other drug treatment providers, and mental health providers to implement successful programs to youth. HAWK’s attention to peer pressure, drug and alcohol abuse, personal choices, and infection risks through peer advocacy was highly regarded by the ADP. VISTA 2001 expanded into a California Department of Education collaborative with Local Indians for Education (LIFE) in Shasta County to design an HIV curriculum for California Native youth, which will be disseminated Summer 2002. The new HIV curriculum was showcased at the 25th Annual California Conference on American Indian Education in Los Angeles this past February. HAWK also accepted an invitation from the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES) and delivered a workshop to college/university students at the 2001 AISES conference in Oregon. The team will be presenting in Albuquerque, New Mexico in September for the "Healing Our Spirits Worldwide" conference.

HAWK coordinates peer advocacy training in Northern California to prepare other teams of youth to deliver prevention and reeducation within their own communities. The project receives consultative service from noted professionals such as Maggie Steele, Juan Granados, Irma Amaro-Davis, Michon Eben, Christina Capelletti, Genevieve Markussen, and Medicine Woman Germaine Tremmell. Programs interested in training or a workshop by HAWK may contact RISE at (530) 233-2226.