Each One Teach One is a Wilmington, Del.-based group focused on making teens more aware of HIV and other STDs. The need for such programs is pressing: Delaware has had one of the nation's 10 highest AIDS rates for more than a decade. And as of last year, more than 1,800 of Delaware's 4,262 cumulative HIV/AIDS cases come from three Wilmington ZIP codes, where the majority of residents are African American.

Alyson Lang, the group's founder and executive director, calls the work EOTO does "edu-tainment." "We engage people," said Lang. "We don't just sit at these events and say, 'Take my ink pen and my pamphlet that you're not going to read.'"

The teens who take part in the program play "HIV Jeopardy" or "Friendly Feud," whose categories include ways a condoms can break (using oil-based lubricants or not having enough room at the top) and reasons to get tested for HIV (the condom broke, a partner has been cheating or being diagnosed for an STD). EOTO uses skits and role-playing as well.

According to Audrey Scott-Hynson, an educator with the Police Athletic Center in northeast Wilmington, Lang has become highly respected in her field. "Alyson is the brain in the urban community when it comes to HIV and youth," Scott-Hynson said. "Kids from every area in the city know her as 'The lady who talks about the AIDS.'"

Scott-Hynson and Glen Pruitt, Delaware HIV Consortium's associate executive director, say the passion Lang brings to her work earns her the teens' trust. "She's perceived by young people as a peer," said Pruitt. "She's non-threatening. Her approach isn't a lecture followed by questions and answers. She gets their attention in unique ways, slips in information, then engages them in dialogue."

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