WHO IS HUSNA KHAN ?

Meet Husna Khan a student who is also a peer educator.

Advocates for good morals in the society

 

Profile: Husna Ismail Khan

Who is a peer educator? What are the duties and responsibilities of a peer educator? Even after completing high school, Husna Khan, 21, never thought she would become a peer educator. Her goal was to join a campus of her choice and pursue a course related to journalism. Today, she works with Kiota foundation, a community based organization located in Changamwe, Mombasa.

Peer educator advocates and promotes positive behaviors and provides accurate information to young people in the society. Husna uses most of her time if not in school to do peer talks, acting and video shooting, activities assigned to her by Kiota foundation. The contents created promotes good morals to youths. Some which features her have been aired on Tawala TV and UTV in Kenya.

“As a peer educator, my main duties are to attend all trainings to teach peer education programs and also practice teaching the assigned mental health education program. For the benefit of one who may be wondering what is peer education, is basically teaching or sharing of health information, values and behaviors in educating others who may be sharing similar social backgrounds or life experiences.”she says.

Photo courtesy: TUM students in session

Ms Husna is a diploma student in mass communication at Technical University of Mombasa (TUM). She managed to join this public institution after attaining a mean grade of a C plain in her 2018 KCSE results. Kipevu village is her birth land,it is in Changamwe constituency Mombasa county. She started schooling at Guru Nanak primary in 2006 and later went to Star of the Sea High school which is sponsored by Holy Catholic Church even though she is a muslim.

“While in primary school, I was very active in athletics and passionate about conserving the environment, therefore, I was an enthusiastic environmentalist. I scored 301 marks and joined high school. At high school, I was appointed as a chairperson of Junior Achievement Group whose main purpose was to innovate business ideas and make them lively to sustain students standards of living. I got a C plain and that is when I fetched my chance to join TUM.” says a journalism student.

Although her main focus was to peer young girls only, Ms Husna faces challenges while doing this,  married couples bring issues from their families which she feels are out of her knowledge. In this situation, she finds herself referring them to her seniors. In real sense, peer educator is somehow different from a counselor. Another challenge, is most of youths attending sessions are jobless and this leads to ineffective participation in discussion since some are hungry and thirsty. 

“Sometimes I find myself unable to assist when it comes to matters which I'm not trained to offer. Such like marriage issues related to bed and whatsoever. People should understand that peer education is all about exchanging ideas through a mode of discussions.” she adds.

Photo/file/ Ms Husna using a telescope.

Swimming, dancing, travelling and cooking are some of her hobbies and likes. Her intelligence and efforts to learn more than one language has made her to be fluent in English, Swahili, Taita and Urdu. She tells me that her father, Mr Khan, is a Hindi of Indian nationality while her mother is a taita. What a perfect match! The young lady believes in internal focus since one may not always have external support, so one must be self-driven.

“Finally, I'm a passionate citizen who wishes to change my community lifestyle by empowering other young girls and women to make informed decision. I hope one day, I will be recognized as a prosperous journalist in the world.” she concludes.

                And now you know...

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