Countywide : Teen AIDS Educators to Join Walk at UCI

Teen-age American Red Cross volunteers have been working for more than a year to help teach fellow students about the dangers of the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS.

The young volunteers took a 16-hour course and brought Red Cross teaching materials about AIDS to more than 10,000 students around the county. They make the presentations without adult help.

“It’s more comfortable, more open,” said David Nguyen, 16, a Garden Grove High junior who spoke recently to a group of students at El Modena High.

Members of the Youth HIV/AIDS Volunteer Educators program are taught to speak frankly about the dangers of AIDS, using terms that young people understand.

“The whole room is teen-agers,” Nguyen explained. “They really listen in. They want to learn. They talk to me and they talk in their own language. Teen-agers don’t talk the same as adults.”

Nguyen and a dozen other young volunteers met this week to make posters they will carry in Sunday’s AIDS Walk. The 10-kilometer walk through the UC Irvine campus is expected to attract more than 9,000 marchers.

The youth-to-youth program started in February, 1993. It’s probably more effective than adult lectures about sexually transmitted diseases, said Susan Sullivan, a nurse who works for the County Health Care Agency and the Red Cross.

The Red Cross curriculum, which the youth volunteers use, tells the number of AIDS cases, the causes of AIDS and how HIV is transmitted. It teaches that abstinence is the only sure way to avoid AIDS. But the teen-age volunteers also tell students to know how to use condoms to protect themselves when they do have sex.

According to Red Cross teaching materials, condoms can be 98% effective at preventing HIV transmission, if used correctly and consistently. The Just Say No programs that work to lower drug use will not work to curtail the sexual behavior that can transmit HIV, said Sullivan, who has eight years of experience working at the Red Cross to fight AIDS.

“With sexuality, you’re talking about hormones,” Sullivan said. “Hormones are not driving kids to use drugs.”

Because the Red Cross is so respected, the youth AIDS educator program has spread quickly throughout the county, Sullivan said. Most campuses already have students in Red Cross clubs, where they learn how to help with area emergencies and get training in cardiopulmonary resuscitation and other skills.

Outside groups that want to bring AIDS-awareness programs to the schools can meet with resistance from parents, Sullivan said. But when students ask to teach at their own schools they are more likely to be allowed, she said. The teen volunteers can make the health presentation in English, Spanish, Korean, Japanese and Persian. Nguyen is prepared to make his presentation in Vietnamese.

Monique Moreno, 16, and Jesus Torres, 17, both students at Santa Ana High School, recently spoke in Spanish with two English-as-a-second-language classes at Capistrano Valley High School. Many of the students were initially shy, Moreno said.

“They’re embarrassed, but if we say it, they’ll say it too,” Moreno said. “They want to know about protection.”

Moreno said she could tell some of the students had little knowledge of AIDS or the risks of sex.

But Moreno recognizes that just because she speaks to students as a peer, she can’t force them to delay having sex. “They’re going to have sex anyway,” she said. “They’re going to do it anyway, no matter what you say.”

Because of that logic, the youth volunteers do tell students how to use condoms.

“It’s better to be protected than not be protected at all,” Torres said.

AIDS Walk Funds

Since 1990, money raised by Orange County walkers and corporate sponsors has doubled. During the same period the number of walkers has quadrupled. Each year, 78% of the donations are distributed to local AIDS-related organizations.

Funds raised: ‘94: $650,000*

Walkers: ‘94: 9,000*

* Projection

Source: AIDS Walk Orange County; Researched by APRIL JACKSON / Los Angeles Times