Success Story

Peer Educator Finds Pride Working with Teens in her Community

The Peer Educators work to empower teenagers, while involving parents and community leaders.

For the past three years, Eridania Brito has been volunteering as a peer educator for an adolescent reproductive health program. She tells how she was recruited with fondness. The Dominican Association for Family Planning (Adoplafam, in Spanish), a USAID grantee, visited her neighborhood to identify possible educators. After an initial interview, Eridania was selected to participate in a three day workshop where she quickly absorbed the information presented. Shortly after entering the program, she recruited 15 peers educators (beneficiaries), one of whom was her own sister.

During her time as a peer educator, Eridania has significantly increased her involvement and responsibilities in the program. After only three months in the program she became a peer educator leader. This increased her responsibilities to not only serving her own group of beneficiaries, but also supervising, coaching and motivating other peer educators. 

USAID/Dominican Republic’s Peer Education Program works to empower teenagers in community groups and schools, and also involves parents and community leaders to help them communicate with their children. Themes include self-esteem, life planning, goals, gender roles, HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, domestic violence, reproductive health and family planning. The program benefits vulnerable Dominican communities in several regions of the country.

Many of the program’s beneficiaries go on to become peer educators themselves, thus multiplying its reach and impact. When asked about the impact her work has had on her peers she responds that they have strengthened their relationship with their parents. Eridania says she has also seen improvements in the way that parents and teachers communicate with the teenagers, as they increase their knowledge of reproductive health issues.

The program has had an impact on her as well. “I have grown personally and accomplished many goals, such as being a better person, and improving my self-esteem,” she says. “I am less afraid to talk in public and to big groups of people, and I have accomplished my initial goal of graduating from high school.” Eridania has also become an advocate for decreasing the stigma that affects people living with HIV/AIDS. She participated in the 2005 national HIV/AIDS song contest, singing a song that she composed herself. For her effort, she was awarded second place. Now, she is studying in the University and has just over a year to go before finishing her degree in Linguistics. When asked how many hours she dedicates to peer education, she responds, “It’s hard to quantify, I might be sitting in a class in the University and someone comes up to me with a question about reproductive health or someone in the neighborhood comes to my house about advice on a problem they are having with their parents.” The peer educators program is now an integral part of Eridania’s life; something that makes her an example for other teens in her community.