HAI’s Prevention Education Program was started over a decade ago as a response to the devastation of HIV/AIDS. From its inception HAI has had a history of responding to the needs of specific populations, from adults in state psychiatric facilities to those in drug treatment programs and correctional facilities. In addition to HIV/AIDS prevention education, the workshop program has developed programs for TB prevention education, violence prevention for youth and, most recently, housing readiness workshops for homeless families with children. Always responsive, HAI sought and was one of six agencies awarded a contract by the New York City Department of Health to do HIV prevention programs in Tier II Family Residences, transitional shelters for homeless single women, co-ed and women’s drop-in centers, as well as in commercial hotels housing homeless families with children.

Throughout its history, the program has been especially devoted to the needs of youth at risk wherever they are — at home, treatment centers, in schools and community centers, and in jail. It uses the performing and visual arts as a way of getting vital information across to both traditional and non-traditional young audiences. HAI has also worked with the Mayor’s Commission on Youth Empowerment Services (YES) through which youth created a violence prevention play that toured juvenile justice facilities.

Youth Services – In 1994, HAI’s Violence Prevention Program received a grant from Pfizer, Inc. to develop a pilot workshop and training model oriented toward violence prevention for New York City high school students. The City Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD) helped expand the program to include work with young people already involved in the juvenile and/or criminal justice systems. HAI developed scenarios based on needs discovered in interviews and focus groups. HAI then recruited facilitator/actors and young people who had already “been there,” or who had completed HAI’s Violence Prevention workshops. Actors and Peer Educators received training in various theater and conflict resolution techniques from professional consultants that allowed them to examine violent situations, recognize how young people rely on violence to build self-image, understand how violence is self-destructive, and explore alternatives to violent responses. Peer educators served as a bridge, encouraging ideas to travel back and forth between facilitator and participants. Foster Burton, an eighteen-year-old African-American from East Harlem, first heard of HAI while participating in a workshop series at the Professional Performing Arts High School in Manhattan. When asked what inspired him to become a Peer Educator, he said, “I liked the connection they had with the students, the topics discussed, and how it was presented. I like that we can educate the students about things they may not know, and give them different perspectives on life. Sometimes we help them make decisions about what’s right or wrong.”

By recruiting students from all parts of New York City, HAI is able to incorporate a wide range of life experiences, and to assemble a multiethnic, multitalented group of leaders. Their various social and economic backgrounds allow HAI to stay in tune with the needs of the ever- changing city and its youth, and to show the city what its young leaders have to offer.

Whereas most of HAI’s youth services had been in workshops, in 1999 it developed Peace by Peace I, a theatrical performance that shows how the cycle of violence can affect lives and includes scenes of teenagers’ everyday struggles. Students attend the performance and then participate in two follow up workshops held in the groups’ respective classrooms. In the performance, young HAI alumni bring their characters to life.Deja is dealing with parental violence. Angel is a teenager trying hard not to give in to peer pressure to make a fast buck selling drugs. Angel also has to be the “man of the house” because he lives with his younger sibling in a home where his grandmother is the legal guardian. Another scene is about the business of drug dealing and its repercussions. At the end, the actors come out and tell the audience, “We all have a choice in life; we can resolve our problems with drugs and violence, or we can think things through, and before making the wrong decision truly understand the meaning of being alive. Being a survivor of so much negativity is heroic in and of itself.” The workshops are expected to accomplish two goals in dealing with conflict, as presented in the performance: to process and discuss with the participants what they saw, and to bring about a closure, a discussion in which the group reviews and evaluates the consequences of and alternatives to the choices that were made.

During its first year, Peace by Peace I reached over 2,427 students. At Louis D. Brandeis High School, over 340 students “laughed, cheered and clapped in appreciation of the vignettes presented:in classes the next day, the students wrote about the segments that especially touched them or struck a familiar chord. The follow up workshops engendered lively discussions that focused not only on violence prevention, but on values clarification.”

The program was so successful in its first year that the production was revised and expanded to fifteen additional sites, eventually reaching an audience totaling 3581. Through feedback from focus groups with HAI’s peer educators, three scenes were added to the performance. Peace by Peace II included a scene of gun violence, relationship abuse and of a youth questioning his friend’s sexual orientation.

Rehearsals for Peace by Peace III began in October. This version includes a scene about racial profiling, an issue of special importance since the tragedy of September 11.

Services To Women – As another example of HAI’s response to important and relevant educational needs it has added a new workshop component to address the topic of domestic violence, a topic only tangentially touched upon in workshops. With a recent grant from Philip Morris Companies, HAI conducted interviews and focus groups to develop realistic characters and scenarios tailored to the experiences of homeless women in shelters.

One of HAI’s overall goals of the program is to increase understanding of domestic violence, a topic about which misconceptions abound. Domestic violence can take the form of physical, sexual, economic, emotional or psychological abuse, each with its own devastating effects. HAI hopes to dispel the myths and help clients have a better understanding of their options and available resources. Perhaps HAI’s most important goal is to help clients identify healthy relationships for which many women have no role model. The program will show through role-play, what a healthy, communicative relationship feels like.

Through HAI’s continuing efforts to provide services that are responsive to the needs of communities often affected by the tragedies and devastations of our society, participants in HAI’s Prevention Education workshops may benefit in ways that provide a greater sense of well being, hope, and inspiration.