Peers with Purpose: How We Incorporate Peer Mentorship into Everything We Do

By Annabel Mumba
Annabel Mumba is AYC’s Donor Relations Coordinator in Zambia. She is a Scholarship Fund recipient, high school graduate and current college student, and also one of our Success Stories.

Co-written by Pamela O’Brien, African Education Program’s Development Director, who is mentoring Annabel as she pursues a journalism degree.

At the Amos Youth Centre (AYC) we believe in the power of peer mentorship. When young people are able to learn from someone they can relate to they are more likely to engage and apply what they’ve learned. Let’s look at some of the ways peer mentorship is being carried out at the Amos Youth Centre and in the communities we serve.

Building Space for Open and Honest Dialogue

We know that many young people make behavior changes not only based on what they know, but on the opinions and actions of their trusted peers and their community.

The Gold-Youth Development Agency programme embeds peer leaders and their mentors into schools and communities, developing young people to become proactive agents of positive change. Through our partnership with the Gold-Youth programme we have trained over 200 peer educators to engage their peers to make positive choices, improve their schoolwork, and maximize their impact on their communities.

Hellen, an AYC high school graduate and one of AYC’s Senior Facilitator Interns, said that she got involved with the Gold-Youth programme to help her peers, “learn how they can positively face challenges and become empowered young leaders.”

Today, peer educators in the Gold-Youth programme have reached over 4,000 youth with information, resources and support to address reproductive health, gender equity, drug abuse prevention, and leadership development. Peer mentorship sessions include role playing and real life scenarios to create situations that youth may encounter in their communities.

Reproductive health sessions at AYC are often led by peers.

Sports can drive learning and connection

In 2024, AYC partnered with Aidsfonds and Primrose Community Health Organization to bring HIV prevention, care, and treatment to four rural communities in the Chiawa Chiefdom located in the Lower Zambezi region of Zambia. The communities in this area face unique challenges to accessing HIV information and services because of Chiawa Chiefdom’s remote location.

As part of this initiative, AYC is responsible for training sports mentors to deliver important HIV education to youth in the community. Through this approach, youth learn about HIV prevention, care, and treatment from a trusted peer during weekly football practices and monthly tournaments.

Importantly, the monthly tournaments create a stigma-free environment for the entire community to participate in HIV testing and meet with community health workers. Since the start of the project nearly 400 children have been connected with HIV services after attending a sports session led by one of our sports mentors.

Sharing knowledge for a sustainable future

AYC has partnered with Aidsfonds to equip young people with life-saving information, services, and mentorship through sports.

Extreme weather events like floods, droughts, and heatwaves are becoming more frequent and severe in Southern Africa. To build climate resilience at the community level, AYC, through the African Education Program (AEP), has partnered with Kia Middle East and Africa and The Waste Lab to establish Kafue’s first Urban Farming & Permaculture Learning Space - aka the Kia Garden.

The urban farming techniques taught and demonstrated at the Learning Space are designed to be simple, sustainable, and easily replicable in small spaces and backyard settings. To maximize the impact of the learnings at the garden, three youth ambassadors - Matron, Caston, and Kelly (who are all AYC high school graduates) -  have been chosen to lead composting and planting efforts as well as cultivating eco-friendly fabrics.

As part of this initiative, Matron, Caston, and Kelly joined 22 other youth for a three-week biofabrication training to learn how banana fibers (from bananas grown in the garden) can be used to create eco-friendly crafts like tote bags.

Youth are being mentored in biofabrication, creating fabric from banana fibers as a part of the Urban Farming & Permaculture Learning Space.

Over 800 members of the Amos Youth Centre and their families will benefit from ongoing training and exposure to sustainable agriculture practices—promoting a wider culture of organic, smart, and climate - resilient farming.

Peer mentorship is at the heart of everything we do at the Amos Youth Centre (AYC). This is why AYC high school graduates earn their college scholarship by volunteering at the Learning & Leadership Centre and mentoring their younger peers through tutoring in all major subjects for grades 7-12 or sharing a special skill with their peers such as photography or electrical engineering.

At Kafue’s first Urban Farming & Permaculture Learning Space youth ambassadors teach their peers about sustainable agriculture practices. These practices will drive economic growth and food security for the broader community.