Journey of Hope: A Practical Guide for Making Positive Life Choices – Haiti User’s Guide

This user’s guide is part of the Haiti Journey of Hope Kit – a set of practical experiential learning activities designed to address a range of HIV and AIDS related issues, in particular HIV prevention.

It guides participants to develop life skills that can help them deal with different situations, linked to staying healthy and achieving their goals and dreams in life. The Journey is represented by: a mass of water, where there are crocodiles, hippos, and snakes, representing dangers in life including the HIV virus and other STIs; narrow bridges and three boats, representing prevention methods of abstinence, faithfulness, and condom use; and future islands, representing what participants most want and value in life– their future goals and dreams.

The overall aims of Journey of Hope are to:

1. Help people in Haiti stop the spread of HIV and have a healthy life
2. Enable people to be in relationships they want, in a way that keeps them safe from HIV infection
3. Give hope to people for a future that helps them choose to abstain, be faithful, or use condoms to prevent HIV infection.

To achieve the overall aims, Journey of Hope:

• Promotes open discussions about sexual behavior and issues related to HIV and AIDS
• Involves people in fun and interesting ways using participatory story telling with interactive visual aids and symbols
• Provides the choice and helps participants to develop skills that empower them to protect themselves from HIV protection (abstinence, faithfulness, and condom use)
• Encourages people to plot their own ways to a safer lifestyle to enable them to achieve outcomes they really want and value in life;
• Applies a range of powerful and practical communication tools for behavior change
• Enables people to develop skills in negotiating sexual matters in a relationship
• Clarifies issues around Voluntary Counseling and Testing
• Promotes support, compassion and positive living for those living with HIV and AIDS

Source: Johns Hopkins University Center for Communicaiton Programs

Date of Publication: March 25, 2019