My lovely orange family,

It is almost end of the year, and I believe that 2014 gave us many memories that

shouldn’t be forgotten.

Try to stop for a second and think what changed your life so much in past 12 months

that is worth to be remembered. Is it related with success on your faculty, good

practice from your national network activities, honest friendship you care about, or

some travel experience?

Whatever you have in your mind, no doubt that it shouldn’t be forgotten. Why?

Because you are biggest contributor in changing your dreams into reality! And

because of that I would like to congratulate you.

Not only for your personal success, but because of all your unbelievable capacity,

unselfish volunteerism and strong motivation you have, and that enabled

internationally recognized success of our beloved Y-PEER through past year.

In the name of all International Coordinators, I would like to use this opportunity to

thank you for being our support and lifeline of our network, because without you this

orange magic wouldn’t sparkle as it really does. May next year bring you prosperity,

success and stronger interpersonal understanding, not only in professional but also

personal part of your life!

Marija Delaš, IC

7

11

16

In the last two months Y-PEER Bulgaria has organized many activities due to the new

working season.

In September the most practiced activity of the young

Volunteers in each city of Bulgaria was outreach work.

Meeting young people in their natural environment and

having conversations with them is one of the most important

activities in the area of HIV/AIDS prevention. This is the

best way to communicate with youngsters and inform them

about the issues all around the world.

September is also the month in which each club of Y-PEER in

our country is making its annual Team-Building training. The main

objective of these trainings is to introduce our field of work to the

new volunteers and explain them how the whole network is working,

to make a strong connection between the volunteers so that they can

rely on each other in their further working process.

In October an international Theatre Based PEER Education Training organized by

PETRI Sofia took place. It was mostly based on work with Roma communities

but also topics concerning peer education based on Theater-based techniques

and Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights were discussed. A volunteer from

Veliko Tarnovo also took part in that training.

From the beginning of October the volunteers have started a campaign in

. the Bulgarian schools.

They are making monthly trainings on the topics of HIV/AIDS Prevention,

Contraception and Sexually Transmitted Infections. So that in Bulgaria there isn’t a class in

school for Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights that’s the way to keep the young people

informed.

The upcoming event that has consumed the energy and motivation of the volunteers is

Halloween. Every year in each and every one of the cities in Bulgaria, where Y-PEER is settled,

big costume parties with live music and games are organized.

On October 22 and 29, Y-PEER China was invited to undertake

peer education for more than 30 volunteers from 11 universities

in Haidian district. In these two trainings, volunteers discussed

different sexual orientations, gender stereotypes and some basic

knowledge of AIDS/HIV.

From October 28 to 31, intern Lan Hanzhen was invited to the Youth

Leadership Training held by New Gen in Sandong Province. From this training,

she made the contact with many youth leaders of NGOs in AIDS field and learned

lots of knowledge and skills of being an excellent youth leader.

On November 1st, China Youth Network interviewed new volunteers from 9 am

to 6 pm in the conference room of China Family Planning Association, and finally

we have 17 new volunteers join in our group who are from different universities

in Beijing.

On November 22, China Youth Network organized the first meeting of all

Together 21 old and new members in Beijing. Instructors Lily Li and Liang Xiao

also attended the ice-breaking activity.

On November 24, two volunteers from China Youth Network were invited to

attend the “2014 State of World Population Report" Conference and Youth

Innovation Forum in Beijing, held by United Nations Population Fund.

On November 27, China Youth Network participated in the activity

An AIDS Free Generation held by UNAIDS, UNICEF, and Danlan in

Beijing. Core members Zhang Qingfang, Zhou Siqi, intern Yang

Tong and five volunteers attended this activity and four of the

volunteers performed a wonderful poetry recitation about volunteer

and AIDS free on the event.

It has been such an amazing month in Egypt where Y-PEER Egypt's volunteers were

wondering all over the country from the north to south and from east to west raising the

slogan of " Women Empowerment ", that campaign has been conducted

in 16 cities with awareness campaigns and street theater

performances targeting young girls and boys in the rural areas

focusing mainly on the Upper Egypt .

The UNFPA office was the greatest supporter and Y-PEER

Celebrities from all over the world participated themselves

in the campaigns in 4 cities .

It was amazing to know that we reached more than our target

(20,000) young Egyptian person .

In the framework of EECA Youth Voice campaign GYDEA (Y-PEER Georgia)

has organized many events involving youth people, some of which include

reaching out in the regions on Georgia such as Telavi and Gori, where we held

movie sessions at the end of November about child marriages and adolescent

pregnancies after which we organized discussions on the relevant topics.

The movie screened was called “Motherhood in childhood.

Continuing with the medium of film, we held a public screening of “Dallas buyers’ club” in

one of the most popular movie theaters of Tbilisi, as it tackles the subjects of HIV/AIDS as

well as stigma and discrimination. The discussion held after the screening was fruitful and

sparked heated debate and engagement of all those attending. Following the event we

announced winners of our youth media contest, which was part of the national

Youth Voice Campaign and rewarded them with vouchers of electronics

Shop.

Click here to see the video

http://bit.ly/1qZvzdL

Y-PEER MENA Regional Meeting

Y-PEER Regional Networking and Partnership Forum took place in Cairo in the period from

14 : 17 October 2014 gathering more than 100 Y-PEER youth from the MENA region and also

country and regional UNFPA offices representatives .

The forum was very fruitful, energetic sharing so different amazing experiences from each

country . I t was also amazing to have the inspiring speechs from regional offices and PETRI

Sofia representatives.

Also the youth developed a regional plan of action- upon their own needs - that was raised to

the regional office and created a team of all the countries that will follow up with the regional

office who will in turn look at that plan and search for the best method of its achievement.

Y-PEER Jordan is rocking that month hosting the regional advanced

theater Based training of trainers in Amman from 26 : 31 Oct 2014 for 12

Y-PEER Members from the whole region in order to form theater teams

in all the represented countries . It is held in collaboration between

UNFPA & National Center for Culture and Arts.

In this Pic we can see them with the great Jordanian scenarist Mr. Nabil

Mesilhy to learn from his experience.

They are also having training on Proposal writing and Fund raising

for around 15 persons in Amman also.

The youth in this picture are brain storming for the ideas of Proposals.

Y-PEER Kazakhstan continues to discover and engage more new cities and

counties into their activities. Thereby, volunteers from Y-PEER VOSTOK (eastern part of

Kazakhstan) conducted several events in local schools and lyceums in Ust-Kamenogorsk city.

One of the achievements of this month for the network, that right after the

National Forum volunteers began actively share and use the educational

recourses, such as presentations, spots, training modules and manuals

developed by young people across the country or translated and adopted

for Kazakh youth.

Well done, Kazakhstan, we hope soon you will gather more volunteers

across the country!

Using the link below you can read the blog of one of the volunteer, Alexandr

Shtykov, who told about the benefits of being the volunteer of Y-PEER and described the

history of Y-PEER in Kazakhstan.

http://pikabu.ru/story/moe_prizvanie_2684458

26-27 – Y-PEER Kazakhstan took part in an informal youth conference

ZhasCamp in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The goal of this conference is to

gather young people that contribute to the community change via

social and creative projects.

Y-PEER Kazakhstan family is growing! A new cohort of 25 peer

educators was taught in the city of Semey in the Eastern part of

Kazakhstan as well as in Astana.

The series of trainings on volunteerism, leadership

and SRHR were conducted in high schools, universities and colleges

in Semey, Shymkent, Astana, and Almaty.

Above that, volunteers from Almaty continued their summer program

of spreading information in orphanages in Almaty.

The main event in the spotlights is the interview given to KAZAKH TV.

Here’s the link to the video

http://bit.ly/1wVyarS

.

Y-PEERians told about their mission and the history of the network. The

KAZAKH TV is broadcasted in English language in 70 countries

The International Volunteer Forum was organized in Semey on November,

the 12th, where participants arrived from Tajikistan, Russia, and Kyrgyzstan.

Alexander Shtykov was a representative of Y-PEER, and after the event many

partners demonstrated their willing to collaborate with us.

On 18th of November, the YouthVoice Campaign was officially

launched in Kazakhstan. Due to this event, at the UN office the

conference/debates were held between the teams of three

universities with the participation of Y-PEER regarding the

issues about SRH.

Lucy Wanjiku a young lady from Kenya living positively dedicated her life to

mentor young girls and women in Sexual Reproductive Health , she has started

projects to support teenagers and mothers living in informal settlement.

“Making someone’s life better is what’s gives me strength,” says Lucy

“especially girls born and raised in informal settlement,”.

Lucy had been featured in National TV’s with her knowledge and her

extraordinary life story, she mainly attends youth forums where she get

opportunities to talk to youths on SRH and empower them, according to lucy;

mistakes are being repeated because youth lack mentors.

Source Video : http://bit.ly/16sKpRc

International Day of the Girl Child was celebrated in Kyrgyzstan

In recognition of the importance of investing in and empowering girls during adolescence and

preventing and eliminating the various forms of violence they experience, the theme of

International Day of the Girl Child for 2014 is Empowering Adolescent Girls: Ending the Cycle of

Violence.

To take efforts to end all forms of violence against girls and women, it is important that we focus

on adolescent girls and move beyond awareness-raising to investments in and support for this

critical group that will shape the present and the future. In this regards Y-PEER

Kyrgyzstan organized the photo-session with the messages addressed to

society, that girls have rights to live in not-violated community and must to be

heard. Parents shouldn’t force them to early marriages, but have to give the

right to choose when and with whom to build the family.

Besides this, whole October Y-PEER Kyrgyzstan was engaged into the “Let’s

protect children from violence together!” information campaign, organized by

NGOs Association and EU.

In the framework of Campaign there were developed social video and audio spots, brochures for

migrants, schools, billboards in the city, and several TV shows were conducted. Mostly, campaign

was focused on gender aspects, because both: girls and boys might be affected by different forms

of violence.

You can find more information, using the link below:

http://www.knews.kg/society/55162/

Child-friendly HIV pill

A child-friendly anti-retroviral that combines different drugs needed to manage HIV/Aids

will soon be available in Kenya.

The drug, which will be released in December, comes as big relief for

hundreds of thousands of children born with HIV in Kenya.

The children will now be treated with one pill, which is a combination

of two drugs known as Lopinavir and ritonavir.

Dr.Kimutai

At the moment, children living with the virus take four to five different syrups of the

formulation which has a bitter taste and is proving to be a real struggle getting them to

take.

“Some of the current syrups formulation available for children are bitter and have a high

amount of alcohol, giving them a horrible taste,” said Dr Robert Kimutai a paediatrician

and clinical trial manager.

The drugs are appropriate for children easy to take and have no adverse effects

particularly in children co-infected with other diseases such as tuberculosis, the drug was

developed in partnership with the Geneva-based Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative

(DNDi)

A Y-PEER representative participated as a resource person to a

training on sexual and reproductive health for Moroccan journalists.

The aim of this event was to encourage the media to openly

address the challenges related to reproductive health and rights

and invite journalists to commit themselves to the cause.

Y-PEER contribution was about presenting peer education as a

powerful tool to raise awareness among youth and demonstrating

the importance of education on sexual and reproductive health at schools.

Later on October, Y-PEER Morocco organized a caravan with the

participation of Y-PEER celebrities: Dani Dimtrovska , Samy cheikh and H-

KAYNE band. The caravan visited many NGOs around the country and ended with

a hip hop concert . Besides, y-PEER Morocco organized a best Selfie Competition on

reproductive health. The winner had the opportunity to take dinner with Y-PEER

celebrities.

Burtinle community says no more FGM for our girls after years of advocacy, knowledge

sharing and public declarations for this harmful practice. The religious leaders, traditional

elders, women groups, health professionals and youth all take part this public event

which was supported by UNFPA and Implemented by PUNCHAD with restless

efforts of Punt land Ministry of women, family affairs and development.

FGM is concentrated in 27 countries in Africa, as well as in Yemen and

Iraqi Kurdistan, and practiced to a lesser extent elsewhere in Asia and

among Diaspora communities around the world.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/UnfpaSomalia

National training of Trainers program after successfully selecting young

leaders with Tamil language skills to become change makers Y PEER

Sri Lanka conducted a National ToT in Sinhala medium between 8th-11th

of October. The ToT focused on shaping youth leaders as Peer Trainers

and Youth advocates by providing knowledge and skills on Sexual and

Reproductive Health and Rights. It was best learning experience and Fun to

the participants.

Source; https://www.facebook.com/ypeer.srilanka

UNFPA together with the Tertiary and Vocational Education and

Training (TVET) Sector in Sri Lanka held a youth consultation

workshop this week to evaluate a needs assessment survey on Sexual

and Reproductive health (SRH).

The workshop was attended by a cross-section of youth representing

the health, academic and government sectors. The survey will be conducted in all public

institutes under the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Skills Development (MYASD).

The annual knowledge sharing event by Y PEER Sri Lanka in partnership

with Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) and the National

Youth Services Council (NYSC).

The event brings together trained peer educators on

sexual and reproductive health from districts all around Sri Lanka to

share their knowledge and experiences workingin the field.

Finalizing the First Ever Policy on Health for Young People

UNFPA together with the Ministry of Health held a multi-stakeholder meeting

today to finalize the first ever National Policy & Strategy on the Health of Young

Persons. The overall goal of the policy is to mainstream concerns of health of

the young people and to improve their health, safety, and well-being.

This is covered in nine comprehensive strategies that were discussed and

looked at today. The event drew together important stakeholders including

various young people to review the draft policy and provide their

comments and inputs for improvement.

WORLD AIDS DAY IN TURKEY

In Turkey, since 2011, youth organizations join their forces under 1st December

Youth Initiative to plan and implement joint activities for World AIDS Day with

special emphasize on youth sexual and reproductive health and

rights.

There has been 156 events for this year’s December 1st World

AIDS Day in 37 different cities in Turkey so far. Stands, press

release, social media covering, #showyourselfie, sexual and

reproductive health peer education sessions, panels and

thematic film workshops are some of the events that is on the

list.

At stands there were young people organized flash-mobs to get people’s

attention then explained important facts about HIV/AIDS, disseminating

HIV/AIDS brochures developed by the initiative, played games with other

young people.

Some of the organizations shared their press release with local media

in order to explain their purpose to advocate for this issue.

During all those events power of social media -and media in general,

wouldn’t be missed so that Facebook pages were created to post

about their activities, tweets were sent and photos & videos were shared to

mobilize people on both local and national level. While doing so they

gained young people’s messages by photographing so that they could

share them via #showyourselfie campaign.

Many of local organizations demanded and organized sexual and

reproductive health peer trainings for youth who would like to participate

these events so that it could be ensured their volunteers were sharing right

information with people.

Panels were also conducted by young people to share information such as

transmission & protection ways, condoms, treatment and social

discrimination HIV+ people facing. They wanted to share the message “KEEP CALM &

LEARN HIV/AIDS. TAKE A STEP FORWARD AND GET TESTED TODAY.”

About thematic film workshop; in many of the cities youth gathered

together to watch films about HIV/AIDS like ‘How to Survive a Plague

, Dallas Buyers Club, Philadelphia’. Then they facilitated a discussion

after the film as a group to look closer recent events and see

dynamics of HIV/AIDS timeline.

SMALL FUNDED PROJECTS

This year for the first time young people’s five projects related to SRHR regarding ICPD were

funded.

Under Reproductive Health Peer Education Project, Y-PEER Programme,

a small funding programme was launched in 2014. Young groups and

youth NGOs were eligible to apply with their projects on youth SRHR.

5 projects were selected and then 4 young people from each project

team were invited to participate a Project Development and Implementation

Workshop between 17-21 September 2014. Teams were able to strengthen

their projects. Right after the training they got back to locals to implement

their project while it was closely monitored by Y-PEER with technical

support from UNFPA Country Office.

Project themes are following;

Targeting roma community on their sexual & reproductive health issues with focus on

child marriages,

Targeting high school students, in a city where child marriage is common, on sexual

and reproductive health and child marriages.

Targeting LGBT youth on HIV/AIDS.

Targeting university students on sexual and reproductive

health by cartoons.

Targeting high school students on sexually transmitted

infections including HIV/AIDS.

Project teams are half way through the end and made a great

practice showing what can be done with a small amount of money.

Annual PETRI – Sofia Training School for Advocacy

To support the EECA Youth Voice Campaign momentum,

PETRI Sofia decided to dedicate its Annual Training

School to the topic of Advocacy, supported by the UNFPA

EECA Regional Office, which brought together

57 participants from 19 countries, from the Eastern

Europe and Central Asian region from organizations that

are implementing their activities during the national advocacy

campaigns as part of the Regional Advocacy campaign in 2014.

Training strengthened capacity of young people to plan, implement, monitor and

evaluate advocacy campaigns in their countries aimed at improving

the situation of young people and ensuring their issues are

reflected in the post-2015 agenda as they developed concrete action

plans for their national campaigns.

Here are some of the reflections of the Annual PETRI Sofia

Training School participants:

The annual advocacy training was held this year again in the Astounding

capital of Bulgaria, Sofia, organized by PETRI-Sofia. 19 countries, 57

participants – many young leaders gathered together to master the great

art of advocacy. Sounds great already, doesn’t it?

Three days have passed fast and furious. Through interactive series of

sessions, young advocates-to-be acquired skills of press-conferencing and

became “gurus” of social media thanks to the amazing trainers.

As for me, the training was a priceless and irreplaceable experience. I was

incredibly delighted to get to know many enthusiastic people who strive

to transform the world to a better place to live and hear their innovative

ideas – that’s the best motivation one could ask for. We are now even more

entitled to plan, act and make difference.

Bernard Shaw once said: “Progress is impossible without change, and those

who cannot change their minds cannot change anything”. I can say now that

because of this amazing event I am enabled to see in a new dimension now and

what is more important, I am empowered to change the minds of other people.

Aidana Yeslamgali (Y-PEER Kazakhstan)

Aulonë Kadriu (Peer Education Network, Kosovo)

Dynamic, interactive and very useful – would be the three words I’d use to

describe the Advocay Training if I was asked to do so. There were many

highly motivated young people from various parts of Europe partaking

and willing to learn, so I think this made the whole training an

environment of exchanging good practices and learning not only

from the trainers but from our peers as well. Having the possibility to

transform theory into practice and being mentored by professionals

was one of the main things I would like to highlight when talking about

the training.

We learned that Advocacy is more complex than we thought it was, but this

doesn’t make it any harder to be practiced. Our trainers, especially Kent explained in a

detailed and systematic way the main steps of Advocacy, our potential allies, our opposition

and the tools we can use in achieving our goals and causes.

Thinking about every detail, planning an advocacy campaign precisely with all the steps of it

included, identifying the sources and tools you can utilize in order to make your campaign

as meaningful as possible and what’s the most important – preparing yourself for your

potential “enemies” were definitely the most important and useful parts of this training that

made us feel more skilled, informed and motivated.

For more information visit http://eecayouthvoice.org/

or https://www.facebook.com/EECAYouthVoice

Regional Youth Leadership Group of Youth Voice Campaign

The Regional Youth Leadership Group (RYLG) had the opportunity

To participate in a back-to-back Working Group meeting in Sofia,

Bulgaria last week.

Representatives of YouAct, ASTRA Youth and YSAFE shared good

practices and actively participated in some of the sessions from the

Advocacy Training as well. But the main focus of the meeting was

to revise three publications produced by the UNFPA Regional Office

for Eastern Europe and Central Asia and develop shorter,

youth-friendly briefs

The publications provide a regional overview on Child Marriage, Adolescent Pregnancy and

Investing in Young People. These three documents are comprehensive, but the RYLG aimed to

make these reports into more youth-friendly briefs which can be used by young advocates in their

countries. The RYLG revised the language and came up with

creative ideas about the visualization of the briefs and

graphics. Similarly, the group wrote script drafts for videos

which will engage more young people on the issues.

All of the work was presented on the last day of the advocacy

training. Several participants gave constructive feedback which

was taken into consideration. The report was shared early this

week for further feedback from everyone involved in "Youth

Voice" campaign.

The RYLG was more than happy to meet with most of the young people involved in the campaign.

After this meeting we feel more excited and motivated than ever to continue our work on this

amazing initiative.

Martin

Regional Youth Leadership Group

Y-PEER Regional Planning Meeting

Following the Annual School, there was a Regional Planning Meeting of Y-PEER Network lasting till

24th of November. During the meeting, the 18 young people, together with two of the

International Coordinators and 3 members of the Task Force discussed topics related to the

network’s priorities for the following year;

Here are some of the things we did at the meeting, coming from the participants:

Preslava Ivanova (FPC of Y-PEER Bulgaria)

The Regional Planning Meeting was a very successful event. I was really glad

glad that I took part in it, because a lot of good practices were shared and a lot

of ideas were exchanged. The people there had different backgrounds and were

from different countries, but that didn't stop us from acting like a great team with

a great cause. I hope that we could manage to do all the things in our new year

plan! Thank you for the wonderful time we spent!

Sevinc Samedzade (FPC of Y-PEER Azerbaijan)

Think it went pretty well, in terms of discussing key elements in

development and evolution of the Y-PEER. It was very interesting to

learn the perspectives of Y-PEERs in different countries, how they

mobilize, how some of them is succesfull etc. In general, it was well

organized and useful enough to empower new and old y-peerers.

Elene Sonya Chumburidze (PETRI Fellow, FPC of Y-PEER Georgia)

It was really interesting to observe how Y-PEERers from all these different regions and

backgrounds came together for the benefit of the whole network.

For me, it couldn’t have been more obvious that every single

participant cared so much for Y-PEER and I feel the same way

, as if I really grew up in Y-PEER and the meeting was once

again a demonstration that we all have so many young

colleagues all over the world who do amazing work both

nationally and internationally and it was really inspiring to see

that at the regional meeting.

Y-PEER PETRI – Sofia Center is established in October 2007 as a joint project of the National

Centre for Public Health and Analyses (NCPHA), Bulgaria, Ministry of Health, Bulgaria, UNFPA, the

United Nations Population Fund and Youth Peer Education Network (Y-PEER).

Y-PEER PETRI – Sofia is a regional and resource coordination center, which organizes the activities

of the International Y-PEER network. The Y-PEER youth peer education network was established in

2001 by UNFPA as a network of organizations and institutions, working in the field of sexual and

reproductive health in 52 countries throughout the world.

PETRI – Sofia has started its organizational development and continues to build as a remarkable

example of youth adult partnership. The alliance between the National Centre of Public Health

and Analyses, UNFPA and Y-PEER has given fruitful results more than seven

generations of Y-PEERERS have attended PETRI international and regional

trainings, workshops and different activities. As PETRI Executive I have

always relied on creativity, responsibility, professionalism and new ideas of

young people - PETRI fellows and international coordinators in charge – the

real PETRI driving force.

Twenty six people from 17 countries have rotated and contributed to PETRI development,

procedures, results and reputation. And I know that this is just the beginning, since PETRI is still

young and always will be young, because in its foundations are integrated enthusiasm, energy, love

and devotion of the young people that have grown here as motivated and skillful professionals.

And this is what PETRI is about.

Anina Chileva

PETRI Executive

Being a part from PETRI Sofia team from the beginning and passing

through the experiences I've had during the trainings organized by us,

my enthusiasm and inspiration to work with young people stays just the

same.

Sophia Kandilarova-Georgieva

Expert

I've been working in PETRI Sofia Team for almost two years now, and based on

my experience I can say that it feels like I am a part of a huge family.

I'm really happy that I get work work on such an important topic as

HIV/AIDS and engage with young people.

Dilyan Kamenov Georgiev

Assistant of National Programme on Prevention and Control of HIV/AIDS

Being part of the National Center of Public Health and Analysis and in particular member of

the PETRI-Sofia team in various roles for the past years has been really valuable and life-

changing part of my professional development. Firstly being selected to

undertake the Fellowship programme was one of the reasons that influenced

me to change my priorities and come back in Bulgaria. This decision has a

huge impact on my long-term vision for career development since I decided

to work in the advocacy field by promoting the sexual and reproductive health

and rights of young people and to being involved in the design and

implementation of youth policies.

In all my roles being here in PETRI-Sofia I could say that I have learned a lot,

mainly because of the amazing professionals and that the whole environment

at PETRI-Sofia is based on the Youth-Adult Partnership. I could honestly state that my

experience working at PETRI-Sofia is solid foundation for my future development both

personal and Professional.

Peter Mladenov

Y-PEER International Coordinator In Charge