Creating Messages • Creating messages that are youth specific • Allowing youth to state what prevention means for them • Allowing youth make the connections between HIV/STD prevention and their own personal choices
Why this works • Youth use the technology that drive the prevention messages. • Youth learn how to create the messages and are allowed to write their own scripts in their own language. • Youth learn how to use this technology to apply to other issues that they deem important to them.
Information Dissemination • Youth share stories with each other through their myspace pages, instant messenger systems, email and through podcasts that can be downloaded to their mobile devices. • Youth will subject matter from their peers and youth from across the internet to create new storylines
Shifting the focus of prevention • ANYTHING THAT A YOUTH DOES TO ENRICH THEIR INDIVIDUAL LIVES IS PREVENTION • HIV/STD is the end result of previously unaddressed psychosocial issues that plague youth. • ANYTHING YOU CAN DO WITH A YOUNG PERSON TO ENRICH THEIR INDIVIDUAL LIVES IS PREVENTION
The lasting effects • Youth will re-enforce their individual sense of protection and personal responsibility • Youth will model these individual behaviors within their indivdual social networks • Social norms will begin to emerge based on modified behaviors