An interview with Edo Demetrashvili, a youth activist from Georgia, who has been working in Y-PEER for the past 8 years and together with other colleagues runs “GYDEA” NGO.
Can you describe your experience in Y-PEER, what challenges, barriers and successes have you faced during the period of being a Y-PEERer? How has Y-PEER influenced your life/career?
I started being a Y-PEERer together with my friends more than 8 years ago. We organized peer education sessions every week in summer camps in different parts of Georgia. Every summer we reached thousands of people. In 2010 we decided to create an NGO called GYDEA which made it easier to raise funds on the local level. The peer education sessions that we offer young people are about sexual and reproductive health, HIV/AIDS, STIs and gender based discrimination and violence. All of these are taboo topics in Georgia. There is no sexual education in schools. We were the only ones offering young people a piece of sexual and reproductive health education. It was not easy and there were a lot of barriers but people got used to it and now it’s much easier.
What benefits does Y-PEER offer to young people?
In Georgia one of the biggest benefits for young people is that the information and skills that Y-PEER based peer education is offering is unique because of the lack of sexual education in the education system in the country. Also young people who decide to become peer educators gain a lot of important life skills for future like communication, presentation and leadership skills.
What can young people do better to contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals?
Spreading information and being role models for their peers is very important.
What is one thing you would havedone differently being a Y-PEER member?
I would increase the range of topics Y-PEER covers. There is a big lack of environmental education in Georgia. I would use peer education to give information about it to young people. In other countries there are different needs. Broadening the topic range would let us meet bigger range of needs and requirements in different countries.
What would you suggest that young people should do to become successful?
They should gain as many skills as possible by participating in a lot of activities, volunteering, etc. Y-PEER offers them a big range of very important skills for their future.
