Non-formal education and mentoring for effective reintegration of vulnerable groups of population

International and national experience demonstrates that groups of antisocial behaviour, especially imprisoned drug users and HIV-positive people, need information, education, counseling, based on risky life and social influence which these groups have. For the purpose of effective reintegration into society of people living with HIV and other vulnerable groups by providing access to non-formal education and mentoring, a project was initiated by the NGO Positive Initiative with the support of DVV International Moldova.

Thus, an optimal mechanism for integrating services for vulnerable groups in penitentiary system through outreach activity has been envisaged, the outreach workers being also called peer educators, in-the-field workers, mentors. The specific and innovative aspect of the activity is that peer educators belong to the category of drug users, from the representative group.

The coverage of beneficiaries within penitentiaries is reduced, due to informal status, the impossibility of the NGO Positive Initiative workers to move freely throughout the penitentiary territory. The basic strategy of the activity in prisons is to ensure the sustainability of services and to develop a motivational context for the development of activism among prisoners. Respectively, there is a need to train peer educators among the inmates, especially as there is a major deficiency of such peer educators on the labor market.

Peer educators will be trained to provide basic counseling services in HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, hepatitis, risky behavior, risk reduction programs, reproductive sex education, and mentoring activities. Subsequently, ways of hiring them will be identified and, after prison release, they will be employed as peer educators by the NGO Positive Initiative or will be directed to other partner organizations.

The collaboration experience of the NGO Positive Initiative with DVV International Moldova over the past two years has had considerable results, namely it strengthened and diversified the activities in penitentiary institutions and in the Therapeutic Community, it developed the skills of beneficiaries in hand-made, it contributed to the development of social entrepreneurship within the Therapeutic Community, namely the development of a dairy farm, which is currently under construction.

The residents of the Therapeutic Community, undergoing rehabilitation, need to further create a secure socio-economic environment, given that they have difficulties in fitting in the labour market. It is not about their skills or competencies, but the society can not provide a drug-free environment in which such kind of beneficiaries can live harmoniously. That is why the need to train them in starting up entrepreneurship is self-imposed. It is planned to further ensure the actions of the 2016 project by organizing not only entrepreneurial training with the support of business partners but also through mentoring. In addition to gaining theoretical knowledge, the Therapeutic Community residents will be able to initiate a start-up and improve the existing start-ups.