ravi's blog

During adolescence the body of young children undergoes many changes which at the time can be both pleasurable and painful. But adolescents do not have access to appropriate information which makes them vulnerable to many health risks like STI’s, HIV , early pregnancy, substance abuse.Adolescents do not openly share their concerns, problems with others as they fear being ridiculed or not taken seriously. Therefore, it is necessary to have adolescent friendly health services.

There should be  health centers which are exclusively for adolescents where they can openly share their problems while maintaining confidentiality. In addition  these centers should also have a wide range of services available for adolescents.

To read more, please visit http://www.fogsi.org/publication/adolescent_health_guidelines.pdf

The Sexual Health Intervention project is being implemented in the three states- Karnataka, Tamilnadu and Andhra Pradesh.  The project is based on a research project conducted by Meindert Schaap, on the sexual health realities of street children inBangalore. The project has progressed from the field test phase to the scale up phase and 30 organizations have been a part of the project so far. This project uses the Children’s Toolkit (CTK) with 3D resources, games, puppets to address issues like positive sexuality, sexual abuse, unwanted pregnancy and HIV/AIDS of street and slum children.

The dissemination workshop of the evaluation study brought out interesting outcomes and challenges of reaching out to more number of children and organizations. An immediate challenge that one can foresee is funding. As funding for sexual health issues of street and slum children acrossIndiais limited, there is a need to have a change in the outlook of such programmes e.g. sexual health issues of street and slum children need to be integrated with issues of women e.g. violence against women to create a supportive environment in the community.

In order to reach out to larger number of children it is imperative that this programme is linked with government agencies. A sexual health intervention model can be created to influence government systems for e.g. the government schools in Andhra Pradesh showing interest in conducting these sessions with the girls.

The trainings and the CTK are the two main pillars of the project. The trainings play a vital role in the project. The multi day, multi level trainings help to build knowledge, skills, and comfort on sexuality and sexual health issues of street/working /slum children. When looking at reaching out to a wider audience the capability of scaling up the training component of the project presents itself as a challenge.

Keeping these in mind, a rethinking into the project objectives and strategies is imperative.

Reproductive Health Uganda (RHU) successfully used what’s called a ‘cascade model’ to help kick start a series of youth groups aimed at reaching these marginalized young people.

RHU’s project’s team leaders began by holding workshops for community elders, parents and youth leaders in target areas to gain the trust and support of community leaders.

Having won community support, the project team of peer educators set about organizing ‘model’ youth clubs which provided youth-friendly, accessible information on sexual health and in the form of ‘edu-tainment’: such as puppetry, music and drama in local dialects

For more information please visit http://www.ippf.org/en/What-we-do/Access/Reaching+vulnerable+and+under-served+groups.htm

Issues of sexual and reproductive health of youth and not talked about openly in many families. The youth have no access to proper information, knowledge and skill in dealing with problems of sexual and reproductive health. Many street youth have either not undergone formal education or are dropouts .Therefore, in order to provide them with proper education on sexual and reproductive health it is important that the information given should be through games, activities, pictures which are entertaining, fun and educative. Another important aspect that needs to be considered when providing information is that the language used should not be technical but should be in the dialect used by street youth.

Providing complete and accurate sexuality education is about adding to teens’ existing knowledge and correcting misinformation they might have in a safe and confidential setting. This brand of education is designed to help youth develop their identities and live healthy lives by giving them information, answering their questions, and providing spaces to discuss sexuality, relationships and their changing bodies.

(To read the full article visit http://www.kit.nl/net/KIT_Publicaties_output/showfile.aspx?e=1356)

Street youth are initiated into sex at a young age. They have no parental or adult support and are thereby deprived of information and knowledge on sexuality, sexual health and safe sexual practices. This leads to youths becoming vulnerable to STI’s,  HIV/AIDS, sexual abuse, unwanted pregnancy . It is therefore very important that youths are provided with sexuality education which focuses   on positive sexuality and appreciating and caring about their own bodies. This kind of education will help the youth to take care of themselves and help them lead a happy , healthy and responsible life.