Stepping Stones and Stepping Stones Plus: A Training Package on HIV/AIDS, Gender Issues, Communication and Relationship Skills

Stepping Stones was originally published as a 240-page training manual offering instructions on how to run Stepping Stones workshops, which aim to enable individuals, their peers and their communities to change their behaviour - individually and together - in relation to HIV/AIDS, gender, and relationships. First created for use in communities throughout sub-Saharan Africa, it has also been adapted for use in Asia, North and Latin America, and Europe.

Stepping Stones and subsequently Stepping Stones Plus (2008) were manuals that grew out of a need to counter the prejudice and fear surrounding HIV, and to foster strong and mutually respectful relationships, free from violence and without sexually transmitted infections (STIs) or unplanned pregnancies.

Now combined into a single manual and revised and updated, Stepping Stones and Stepping Stones Plus is a training package designed to help trainers and community members organise a workshop. The training is with young and older women and men, separately and together, to explore their social, sexual, and psychological needs, to overcome their communication blocks, and to practise ways of enriching their relationships. The workshop sessions are meant to help individuals, peers, and their communities move step by step to change behaviours and to build healthy relationships.

The manual and an optional DVD describe how to organise the workshop and run structured exercises involving role play and other participatory methods of group learning. Workshop sessions are held mostly in four separate peer groups, based on self-identified age and gender groupings, with some larger meetings. The optional DVD consists of 15 short clips designed to provide participants with a springboard for discussion during the different sessions of the workshop. Click here for ordering details from Practical Action Publishing.