Teaching HIV Prevention to Thai Youth

I thought May 25, 2007 would be just like the previous last Sunday of the month. I would meet the new group of volunteers at the Suvarmabumi Airport and begin the orientation. It would probably progress the same way that the others had. I would begin by telling stories of how this is the new airport, but they have already found major cracks in the runway and have shifted some flights to good old Don Muang Airport. I’d caution volunteers to always look to the right before crossing a busy street and, yes, it is ok to drink a coke with ice in it. It was all beginning to become routine for me. I had been coordinating the Global Service Corps (GSC) Thailand volunteer program, and telling the same jokes, stories, and cautionary tales, for about a year. However, for this group of volunteers it would be different. The May 25 group was different because of a new program that was being launched in Thailand. In collaboration with Programs for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH), a local NGO, GSC was asked to conduct a series of weekend camps combining HIV/AIDS education and prevention, sexuality education, life skills training, and English training dubbed ‘English for Life’ (EFL). I figured that I would just assume my normal role of program coordinator. I would conduct the orientation and training, ensure that all the program placements and host families were set up, and make sure all the volunteers got where they needed to go in the run up to the EFL camps. Then, once the EFL camps began, I could sit back and watch as all previous six months of planning was put into effect by the volunteers. I could not have been more wrong.