STF's third stream of communication – after print and radio — is 'face-to-face' or interpersonal dialogue. Our outreach and training interventions follow our ecological model , which means they address adolescents, parents and teachers. We are acutely aware that the environment in families, communities and schools largely determines adolescents' ability to stay in school, protect themselves from unwanted consequences of sex, and manage social expectations around gender and early marriage. On average it costs about $3 for STF to reach a young person or adult face-to-face and the usual length of contact is about five hours. Most settings are small group sessions. Some are curriculum-based while others are guided by STF talking points.

STF also conducts teacher sensitisations, peer education training, village and parent meetings, school visits with question and answer sessions, and visits to out of school clubs. In addition, we run four youth centres in northern Uganda and conduct a range of outreach work for other groups such as HIV-positive youth (Young Positives), vulnerable communities such as the Batwa and for youth with special needs.

The golden rule of all face-to-face interventions is that participants get a chance to interact and be active voices in the conversation. We work with and for people, side by side staying true to the STF philosophy of being a conversation not a campaign. In 2010 STF reached an estimated number of over 126,000 young people, parents and teachers directly through our face-to-face networks.

STF has over a decades’ experience in HIV-awareness training in schools from peer education for pupils to workshops for teachers. We work in both primary and secondary schools and occasionally tertiary institutions, like vocational institutions.

Our work with peer educators aims to strengthen and encourage learner-driven skills to increase pupils’ access to ASRH (adolescent sexual and reproductive health) knowledge and services. We have a ‘package’ for peer educators and the community covering a range of teaching methods such as dance and drama for primary schools and role plays and group exercises for older students. Our training programmes have also borrowed from tried and tested curricula such as Stepping Stones, computer-based programmes such as The World Starts with Me and the adult peer educator package developed by the USAID-funded Health Initiatives for the Private Sector project in Uganda (HIPS). In 2010, STF trained 330 peer educators from primary schools and 284 from secondary schools.

To complement our peer education efforts, STF started intensive work with teachers in 1998, what we refer to as ‘teacher sensitisations’. Since then our workshops have promoted positive dialogue on subjects such as adult and adolescent sexuality, domestic violence, and helping adolescents manage body changes and sexual feelings. The workshops are conducted over two days, with the first day devoted to the teachers’ own sexuality issues and the second to helping teachers better understand and support adolescents. A basic premise of our work is that teachers cannot be expected to support the sexual and reproductive well-being of young people unless their own sexual and reproductive health questions have at least been partly satisfied. The workshops support the Ministry of Education’s HIV and sex education programme (PIASCY) and conclude with teachers developing specific action plans to improve adolescent well-being.

STF brings dialogue and HIV testing and counselling to villages with small day-long community fairs and ‘barazas’ (community meetings).  These fairs have been designed to address issues faced by teachers and parents and give them a space in which they can feel in touch with their own communities.

Large teacher fairs also bring HIV counselling and testing to communities, helping them reflect on managing their sexuality and HIV status, and recommit districts to improving primary education. The Teacher Talk fairs are celebratory events that honour their profession, providing counselling and advice in a recreational atmosphere with games, bike races and music. The fairs allow teachers to share testimonies and experiences through group learning and usually provide an opportunity for one-to-one HIV counselling and testing.

Our work within communities also extends to dialogue with parents, in close partnership with district leaders, village health teams and community-based organisations. Our main aims for addressing this group are to help parents strengthen their parenting skills and raise healthier adolescents while improving their own lives. These dialogues generate talk on subjects relevant to this audience: parent-child communication, how to improve marital relationships, combatting HIV/AIDS stigma and dispelling myths and misconceptions about condoms. Through open dialogue, the events have also uncovered much marital unhappiness and lack of communication; men are openly frustrated about sex, often claiming that their wives are too busy with children and women complain of male infidelity and violence. The counselling provided at these fairs helps parents manage their sexual lives more safely and happily.

STF has about 1,300 Straight Talk clubs, of which about 700 are in-school groups and 600 are associations of out-of-school youth. We also have about 150 Parent Talk clubs, groups of listeners who gather around our radio shows for adults.

Clubs are a chance to talk about what has been learned from STF radio shows and newspapers and to grow skills as leaders and activists in positive sexuality, HIV prevention, support for people living with HIV, environmental protection and development.

Some clubs have grown to become community-based organisations, running fish ponds and piggeries. A favourite club activity is tree growing and through our Tree Talk initiative, we can also send you tree and vegetable seed.


Start your own Straight Talk club!
Are you interested in starting a Straight Talk club in your own local area?
STF will be happy to support your efforts by providing our newspapers and a suggested constitution to get the conversations started!

For further information, write to us at:
Straight Talk Foundation PO Box 22366 Kampala

The STF youth centres are safe havens for adolescents and hubs from which staff reaches out to schools and surrounding communities. STF currently has four youth centres in northern Uganda: Gulu Youth Centre was set up in 2004, Kitgum Youth Centre in 2007 (both provide clinical services) and Adjumani and Amuru mini youth centres in 2009. Together they reach about 90,000 young people a year.

The centres hold dialogues in schools and communities and reach out to adolescents (both in and out of school) and adults. The centres host writers’ groups, young positives clubs and savings groups for young mothers, engaging these young people in sports, games, educative videos and dramas.

Gulu and Kitgum Youth Centres provide HIV counselling and testing, family planning, support for PEP and STI treatment, the small youth centres refer. However, talk is at the heart of STF’s youth centre model, even for biomedical interventions such as HCT and our staff STF staff distributes condoms after counselling. At the Amaru centre, we have held innovative Saturday morning sessions for children aged six to nine while there are also ongoing groups for young mothers and young positives.

STF has always been deeply concerned about young people with disabilities and recognises their special needs, often capturing their voices in our newspapers and radio shows.

We have produced radio shows in 14 languages and features in Straight Talk and Young Talk newspapers addressing the rights of adolescents with special needs. In 2009, we intensified our work with young people with disabilities taking on three specialised staff and publishing Straight Talk and Young Talk newspapers in Braille.

The Braille newspapers are not mere translations of the regular content but contain stories from young people who are visually challenged.

Females with disabilities are known to be more exploited sexually as they are often made to feel grateful that someone might desire them. Young people who cannot hear seem the most cut off from conversations on sexuality and staying safe. Disability and special needs is mainstreamed across all STF programs including the Youth Centres. In 2009, STF trained peer educators from the Ugandan NGO, Deaf Link. Moving forward, STF will work with civil society groups that have special expertise in disability.

Straight Talk Foundation adheres to the Positive Health, Dignity and Prevention and Greater Involvement of People living with HIV philosophies. We proactively seek to employ young people living with HIV and attempt to have a young positive team member on most visits to schools and communities. By being acutely aware of the language we use, STF strives to never stigmatise people living with HIV; for example, we never use the phrase ‘AIDS victim’.

We are committed to a proactive partnership with positives and not mere consultation to increase the confidence of young people living with HIV. Since 2009, Straight Talk has run a monthly diary of a young positive who is an STF employee based in Kampala. This column is hugely popular, attracting hundreds of text and email messages and questions, even from outside Uganda. Through the writer’s example, young people living with HIV have been helped to understand that living with HIV does not mean they cannot pursue their ambitions.

Our youth centres counsel young positives and support them with Septrin, family planning, condoms and other products and services as required. Most of the centres have young positive support groups.  STF recognises that all people are sexual and that young positives also want to fall in love, have sexual relationships and form families.

Since 2009, STF’s special needs programme has extended to working with the Batwa community in the Kisoro district. Formerly known as ‘pygmies’, the Batwa were once forest people but now live on the margins of society in south west Uganda. This vulnerable community does not own land and are almost entirely illiterate and destitute. Due to changes in their lifestyle and the small number of Batwa, this community is at risk of extinction.

Few Batwa know their HIV status and most of the women are not aware of prevention of mother-to-child transmission. Dialogue with the Batwa community has to be handled with extra sensitivity, recognising their cultural norms and restrictions in speaking openly about sex. The head of our special needs programme, Quinta Apiyo has engaged with the Batwa in Kisoro and together with health workers, conducted sexual and reproductive health dialogues in their communities and condom use demonstrations.

STF is committed to ensuring that this diminishing community can live healthy lives through awareness of family planning and prevention of HIV and sexually-transmitted diseases. Members of the community have expressed interest in being trained as peer educators and we have supported the youth in forming a Straight Talk club. Our work with the Batwa continues to be handled sensitively to ensure dialogue and communication remain open.

Our work with pastoral communities in Karamoja, deeply traditional groups who are mainly cattle herders, is perhaps among the most challenging. Deeply traditional, these groups live in an arid environment, where agriculture is difficult and armed cattle raiding common.

We have engaged in dialogue with and broadcast radio shows for the Karimojong and Pokot tribes in their own languages. These groups have very strong traditions and face many problems in their daily lives from armed conflicts over cattle, domestic violence, animal disease and famine. Education is also not considered a priority; boys who prefer schooling over looking after animals are considered weak while girls are told education can turn them into prostitutes.

Our approach has also had to adapt in order to recognise the cultural values of these tribes, therefore allowing them to talk about their lives and daily struggles rather than try and ‘change’  them. The Pokot, a small linguistic group of about 80,000 people, is one of two Ugandan groups that practice female genital cutting (FGC). This has presented our Pokot radio presenter with a challenge since the society still largely reveres the practice. The Straight Talk radio shows for Pokot have discussed animal diseases, famine and armed conflict in their community and included the talking point about rethinking the practice of FGC. Funded by UNICEF, STF’s shows are the only Pokot broadcasts in Uganda and have been well-received by this forgotten community.

In the case of the Karimojong, prevalence of HIV is still low due to the taboo on pre-marital sex and geographical isolation – but it is thought to be rising. Some cultural practices such as rape as courtship, body tattooing and wife inheritance are drivers of HIV and this makes it especially important for STF to reach these communities.