Hi, my name is Chinyanta Chimba; I am 20 years old and a member of Students Partnership Worldwide Ex-Volunteers Network in Zambia.  I live in Lusaka which is the capital of Zambia.

I first volunteered with SPW Zambia as a peer Educator in 2008; I worked for 8 months in one of the rural areas in Kabwe at a basic school called Natuseko.  I was working on a program called Schools Health Education Program (SHEP); this involves training volunteer peer educators to work closely with local young people to teach health lessons in public schools that revitalise extracurricular activities for young people, establishing youth resource centres, and organising community-wide festivals around awareness of the issues of HIV and wider health issues.

With the partnership of the Ministry of Education, SPW is also helping to implement a national HIV and AIDS Strategy in over 100 schools through the execution of two different programmes: TAAP and SHEP. With TAAP volunteer peer educator’s work with Teacher Colleges to build the capacity of 2400 Zambian teachers in planning HIV and AIDS curricula and youth-friendly lesson plans in 2007.

I am now living and working in London with Diarmaid and Jane, working as an advocacy intern for Advocates for Action (A4A) for the next 6 months. Advocates for Action is a group of young volunteers working to ensure that all young people have access to accurate information about their Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) and rights. Through my work I am hoping to greatly contribute to international development efforts as well as use my experiences to be able to help my country that has been hit by the worst HIV/AIDS epidemic, and has posed a threat to development and young people.

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