OUTREACH WORKERS TACKLE HEPATITIS C

Getting Youths' Trust Is The Toughest Part Of Education: Experts

Fox Morin joined about 100 youth health workers from across the country
yesterday who gathered in Ottawa to explore hepatitis C among street youths.

Mr. Morin told them t he didn't know the dangers of hepatitis C in his
youth and today he's lucky to be alive.

"My daughter asked me, 'Didn't you think that maybe you would have children
somewhere down the road and did you not think about how it would affect
those kids?' What can I say to that? Drugs was my God."

Mr. Morin says he contracted hepatitis C after years of drug use. After a
transplant six years ago, he says he saw his old liver. "Your liver is
almost the size of a football," he says. "This liver here, as I held it in
my hand ... was a small, flat little hunk of meat, and it looked like a
dried-up meatloaf."

The main issue of the conference, funded by the Public Health Agency of
Canada, was how to educate youths so they can avoid the disease, and, how
to get them to teach each other.

Alan Simpson works as a hepatitis C educator at Youthlink Inner City, a
help centre for homeless youth in Toronto. He says the virus is passed
through the blood.

This means people who share needles or razors or engage in unsafe tattooing
or piercing are at higher risk of contracting it, putting young people at
increased risk, he says.

One or two per cent of Canadians are infected, he says, but among the
homeless youth who use his help centre, 15 per cent carry the virus,
according to a recent study. "It's a huge risk, especially if they're using
drugs," he says.

He says he focuses on teaching people how to avoid getting the disease in
the first place, but one of the main challenges is trust. "They're not
going to trust me as much as they're going to trust someone who they may
have done drugs with, that they may have already been on the street with."

He says this is why peer education is so important and why his organization
encourages street youth to share what they learn.

Mr. Morin had a challenge for those who heard his story.

"Now that we have learned a little bit about hepatitis C, each and every
one of us here has a responsibility to go back to our communities ... and
talk to people."