African Youth Rejuvenation Network

In many Africa traditional societies, the youths joined an age set group after undergoing the initiation rites. In the age groups the youth would learn about: the values of their society, sexuality, moral values and how to cope with the challenges of their times. The youth mainly undertook the role of ensuring that the fellow youths observed the norms of their community.

AYRN has embarked on a number of programmes that are peer based. The programmes take cognizance of the fact that youth have the potential to handle their life challenges.

AYRN trains youth peer groups in Institutions i.e. Universities, High Schools, Churches and youth based community organizations. In the training of the groups we use youth who have undergone a ‘Trainer of trainers’ course to train the others.

We also engage older facilitators in a youth adult partnership when the need arises.

We mainly train peer educators in Institutions since they are also youth and fellow youth are able to identify and bond with them.

In our training programmes we use games and physical activities and we have observed the following benefits:

1. Enhanced Communication between the trainees and the facilitators.
2. Participants knowing each other more deeply.
3. Participants relax
4. Puts the participants in a positive mood and makes learning fun.
5. Enhanced team spirit.
6. Learning and understanding of concepts is made easier.
7. Acts as a bridge to the next topic.

NB: The youth have plenty of energy and with plenty of action and movement learning becomes fun.

Our programmes:

• Leadership training.
• Peer education / peer counselling training.
• Team building.
• Enhancing Academic Success