Greetings,
This digest contains three postings from Kenya, Mexico, and Guinea.
Francisco Rosas and Guillaume Mukenge Bakadi discuss problems in fostering literacy on sexual and reproductive health issues among parents and other adults. Rosas urges parent-targeted programs be more inclusive about a range of sexual and gender issues, including building skills. Bakadi describes a program where girls trained as peer educators reach out to adults and peers at football matches with messages about HIV and unwanted pregnancy.
Bernard Wanyonyi of Kenya shares with us how much the youth that he works with are enjoying the forum. Others have sent similar messages thanking us for the forum.
We look forward to hearing more from you about girls and young women, especially any projects that have had success in teaching girls negotiating skills regarding risky sexual behaviors – a question raised by a participant during Week 2.
Sincerely,
Ed Scholl, for the Forum Coordinators
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Forum Digest 7
- Parental Communication Programs: Address Complex Gender and Sexual Issues
- HIV Intervention Empowers Female Youth
- A Note of Thanks
1. Parental Communication Programs: Address Complex Gender and Sexual Issues
Intergenerational communication is the key to promote an open dialogue between parents and children about sex, sexuality and gender. There is the false belief that these important issues of human development are hard and difficult to address between families and communities in general. But, the truth is that things are changing and parents are getting more worried about their children fostering safe sexual health behaviours to avoid unwanted pregnancies, HIV infection and other STIs and, also, being safe from violence related to sexual orientation and gender.
Parents are an important source of information to their children, but they need to receive training about how to talk with their children about sensitive issues such as sex, sexuality, and gender. Sexuality should be approached from a positive angle, far beyond traditional perspectives that see it as a source of diseases and problems. HIV infection is affecting more young people and youth, and so many adolescent young women are facing pregnancy without the biological and social capacity to cope with childbearing. There are other young men who are being open about their sexual orientation, such young men who have sex with men. Openly gay young men confront homophobia and violence from other social circles.
Programs need to be more inclusive with adult people, namely, parents — mothers and fathers. I want to imagine a family-supportive environment where parents respect decisions made by their children and are supportive of safer and protected behaviours among youth and adolescence. Unfortunately, the other truth is that families are lacking literacy about sexual health education and need training on how to develop realistic skills to teach and share knowledge related sexuality to their children.
-- Francisco Rosas, Consultant, Mexico
2. HIV Intervention Empowers Female Youth
I agree with others that parents and community leaders must be involved to facilitate behavior change among youth. But, how do you approach a traditionalist and conservative community with a low literacy rate to be a part of an intervention whereby girls can become a strong weapon to fight HIV and unwanted pregnancy in the community? I would like to share CCP experience working in rural areas in Guinea/Conakry, in West Africa.
We learned from living and working in the community that, like elsewhere in Africa, it is the father in the household who makes all decisions regarding the family. With the Malinke ethnic group, we have learned that the father looks after the girls more than the boys until they are imposed to marry a man. According to what we know, parents are very strict on girls because they fear the consequences of unwanted pregnancies.
Keeping in mind that when you connect an intervention towards girls we are likely to be linked to the fathers, we decided to identify a community event that could bring together parents, especially fathers and these young girls. We found soccer to be attractive to men, and, so, we channeled our resources into promoting soccer to girls and training these young girls to become community peer educators. We have developed a network of several young girls who deliver messages during soccer games targeting youth and the general public, among them their own parents.
Rather than relying on parents to educate youth on HIV and unwanted pregnancy, we have reversed the trend with more girls empowered to stand in public to talk about sexuality and HIV prevention. Girls are encouraged to promote the slogan, "See Big, Act Now, and Act Immediately." We encourage girls to pass HIV messages to relatives and friends in schools, in the seres (group of people of the same age). One parent stopped by our office one day to make this comment: "Since the PRISM project started working with girls, we have noticed a decrease in the number of unwanted pregnancy."
-- Guillaume Mukenge Bakadi, PRISM project, Upper Guinea region
3. A Note of Thanks
Thanks for your emails. Our Kenyan youths are gaining a lot from the discussion that is going on. We really do appreciate it. We would really like to be receiving more information from you. Once again, thank you.
-- Bernard Wanyonyi, Programme Coordinator, Global Voluntary Development Association, Nairobi, Kenya
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