Local High School Students Lead AIDS Awareness Tours

ALBANY, NY (12/01/2008)(readMedia)-- High school students from Albany, Hudson, Chatham and Taconic Hills high schools, who are all participants in Upper Hudson Planned Parenthood's S.T.A.R.S. (Seriously Talking About Responsible Sex) peer education program, are at Empire State Plaza Convention Center today as part of the state's commemoration of World AIDS Day. Commemoration events will take continue through December 3 and will revolve around the exhibit of the AIDS Memorial Quilt Display.

Specifically, UHPP peer educators will work in pairs to guide groups of students through the AIDS Memorial Quilt Display at the Convention Center. The display features over 2,000 panels made in memory of those lost to HIV/AIDS. The peer teams welcome each school group, facilitate a pre-and-post test knowledge survey, lead a tour of the exhibit and then help them process the experience with an emphasis on prevention education.

In preparation for this event, the S.T.A.R.S. members attended a training provided by the NYS Department of Health. The training program helped them learn more about HIV/AIDS, debunked myths surrounding HIV positive people, and prepared them to teach other young people about HIV/AIDS.

S.T.A.R.S. stands for Seriously Talking About Responsible Sex. Thanks to a grant from the NYS Department of Health, UHPP Education staff are able to recruit and train high school students each year to act as S.T.A.R.S. peer educators. Hundreds of teens in Albany and Columbia Counties have been involved in the S.T.A.R.S. program since its creation. These students learn to provide information about pregnancy prevention, healthy relationships, HIV/AIDS, and other critical healthcare issues to other youth. S.T.A.R.S. members are available to provide workshops to school and community groups. For information, please call Blue Carreker at (518) 466-8500.