Self-esteem, new skills turn sex worker into peer educator

Through its programs, USAID/Senegal works with young people like Sata Ba (not pictured) and other vulnerable groups to spread the word on the risks associated with HIV/AIDS and other sexually-transmitted diseases. Photo: R. Nyberg, USAID

Sata Ba is a woman in her thirties with the fine features and striking beauty of women of the Peul ethnic group. And she’s been a sex worker for much of her life.

“I quit school in the 11th grade. My parents were poor,” she says. “At a young age I was confronted with the hardships of life and started going out with boys to earn money to meet my needs. I was caught in a trap that cost me the best years of my life.”

During a visit to a center specializing in sexually-transmitted illnesses, she heard about “AWA,” an association which educates and supports vulnerable groups like sex workers. “I bought a member’s card and participated regularly in discussions that provided a lot of information,” she adds.

Sata is one of 208 peer-educators trained by AWA, a group supported by USAID since its creation in 1998. Through this activity, USAID seeks to increase awareness on risky behavior, provide support to vulnerable groups, especially through trained peer educators. In 2006 alone, AWA’s peer educators reached 7,550 Senegalese with life-saving sexual health messages.

When AWA offered Sata the opportunity to become a peer educator to conduct awareness activities in bars, she accepted. She received training to educate other sex workers and started her awareness work. She was the first to benefit because, as she put it: “The training made me aware of the risks I ran with multiple partners, and I started using condoms to protect myself and remain in good health.”

Thanks to Sata’s relatively high level of education and dedication to her new activities, AWA included her in numerous meetings, workshops and international conferences, which helped improve her knowledge and skills. Eventually she became one of the association’s three outreach persons who convey messages about sexually transmitted illnesses to a variety of target groups in addition to sex workers.

The moral support from AWA and the lessons learned from her experiences as a peer educator and outreach person for AWA prompted real behavior change in Sata. She now has a positive outlook on life and greater self-esteem. Abandoning sex work, she is now married with one child, and has sworn to remain faithful to her husband.

Helping other sex workers find alternative livelihoods, she says, is crucial. “Many sex workers want to stop but do not have the will or means to do so.”