Developing youth leadership

Children and adolescents are not passive observers or ‘victims’ of HIV and AIDS. They have a primary role to play in the response.

Reducing vulnerability through leadership

Reducing vulnerability to HIV means giving children and adolescents the opportunities and the tools to develop their own leadership on an issue that will profoundly affect their own future.

It is well established that knowledge transmitted by peers is more likely to be assimilated, and that behaviours supported by peer pressure are more likely to be sustained. Plan respects the right of children and adolescents to define and to formulate the knowledge, attitudes and behaviours that they believe are important to transmit to their peers, and to support the development of skills that will enable them to make their own decisions.