4:34 PM
10 Days of Activism
Name: Shreejana Bajracharya
Age:25
Country:Nepal
When I reflect back, it’s
already been more than 6 years, I am working as youth volunteer in Family
Planning Association. I still remember the day, actually my first day in youth center
of the organisation in Bhaktapur. The room was full of young girls and boys and
in the middle of the room there was a young girl sharing her problem. She was an
unmarried pregnant girl who was asking other young people in around her. I was
given a card with doctor written on it and there were few more people arounf
with card named sister, teacher, mother and friend. The young girl who was
sharing her story asked me for suggestion after sharing her problem of unwanted
pregnancy. I told her if she does not want to keep the pregnancy then you may
wish to go for safe abortion which is right of a woman. With my answer, everyone
else in the room clapped. Actually it was an exercise called ‘figure head
exercise’.
After this there was no
looking back. I was all ready to speak about my body, choice and access to
sexual and reproductive health. Slowly I became more aware about the youth
center and its work and with my involvement, I started getting opportunities to
take part in many training and workshops. It was 2007 when I represent youth of
Nepal in an international youth conference to present on Sex work, HIV and
youth I got an international exposure. Similarly I got involved in different
projects including advocating for Comprehensive sexuality education in Nepal in
which my responsibility was also to conduct radio program, a popular radio
program which is about young people SRHR. My team used to get lot of queries
from young people in the program. I remember one of the questions we asked in
radio program "From where the young
people get SRHR information?" One of the listeners of our program SMS
us "50% from books, 20% from
internet, 10% from friends, 3% from cousins, 1% from teachers and 0.01 from
parents" This showed that
parents are uncomfortable to talk with their children about SRHR and young
people are also not able to discuss their RH problems with their family
members. This was a great lesson learnt and then I and my youth center team
organized parent meeting where we noticed that parents also want any other but
authentic place where their children could get information and services
regarding SRHR.
Recently now I am working
as youth consultant in Ipas Nepal and supervisor of World Bank project
"Reproductive health classes for young women factory workers". Being
a young woman and belonging to conservative society where talking about sex and
sexuality is a taboo, I have seen young people struggling because they face RH
problem in their daily life. This has been inspiration for me to work in the
field of young people's SRHR. Young people are not a homogenous group. The
young women working in the factories are marginalized group and vulnerable to
high risk behaviors. Therefore Ipas Nepal with its youth led partner
organizations is working to raise awareness about RH among young women factory
workers by conducting series of RH classes (SRH rights, sex & gender,
relationship, anatomy, puberty & menstruation, pregnancy, contraception and
safe abortion)
One of the young women in
factory shared, " oh god! I am a
mother of two sons and till today I did not know about female genital organs. I
did not know that vagina is where sexual intercourse takes place and urethra is
for only urination." We also found that there is high sexual abuse
among young women factory workers and unsafe sex behaviors. Most of the young
women are unaware about legalization of safe abortion in Nepal. It has been 10
years after legalization of abortion in Nepal but still young women are unaware
of the fact that it is young women's sexual and reproductive rights.
The best lesson learnt in
my life experience is that, only peers can understand another young people’s SRH
problem. Therefore active involvement and participation of young people must be
there while planning policies and programs for youth.
12:49 PM
10 Days of Activism
Name:
Mforian Mouassie Soilihou (Salif)
Age:26
Country: Cameroun
It was in 2002 when things got
started for me being here in this stage. I was a young person in a peer group
which planning to start the first health club in our school with a motivation to
fight against HIV and AIDS among youth in Cameroon in some way. We slowly got
awareness on the whole issue of HIV and AIDS whereas I was aware that my
community was still far away from the knowledge related to it. My engagement provided
me with an opportunity to become a peer educator in a local NGO called
CEPROSCON to work for “participation and
development of adolescent program” with UNICEF. During the time, I got
trained on life skills, behavioral analysis, vulnerability and risk mapping,
animation of friendly discussions and activities for youth and adolescents.
This opportunity encouraged me to
take my own leadership among youth and to commit myself to contribute for my
community. As a peer educator for 3 years, my task was to create and organize
local health club, focus group discussions in the community and to lead the
elaboration of local vulnerability and risk map. My dynamism convicted my peers
and facilitators to select me as the delegate of my region at the National
Youth Network in which I am the national president today.
Since my engagement, I have
participated to the achievements of many actions (campaign, training,
conferences...) and have been involved in related issues affecting youth and
adolescents like; HIV and AIDS, child trafficking, violences against women and
girls, youth participation, etc. In my initiative, a youth friendly center
which established for benefiting youth and adolescents to address the issue of
sexual health and to have good information. I am proud to reflect that i have
helped more than 1500 peers educators to enhance their knowledge on HIV and
AIDS through different activities. I was
designated by UNAIDS Cameroon as a best practice of youth leadership in the
struggle against AIDS among youth in 2007 (confer “Stop sida, paroles des
leaders”, by UNAIDS 2007). The same dynamism gave me the confidence of African
youth peers who nominated me to represent them at the 15th Summit of Heads of
State and Governments of the African Union in Kampala in 2010 alongside two
other youths (confer voices of youth
by UNICEF-Uganda, 2010). Now, I am involved to the global campaign launched in
2010 by Ban ki Moon, the General Secretary of United Nations called “UNiTE to
end violences against women and girls” (confer www.africaunitecampaign.org ).
Each day, I take few minutes to
ask myself, what have I done to contribute to build a better world. I think as
a young person, we all should ask this question to ourselves, to share a common
vision. I am proud to feel useful for my community, country and continent. At
this point, I remember a discussion with a young boy one day who asked me: “Mr.
President, we are really proud of you, what do you want to be in the future?”
and I replied “... the most important is not what you are, but what you bring
to your people, the vision you are following for a social justice...”
By MFORAIN MOUASSIE Soilihou (Salif)
Cameroon
Youth Network and Horizon Jeune association
10:13 AM
10 Days of Activism
Name: Marta Szostak
Age:28
Country: Poland
MARTA SZOSTAK
I have been coordinating ASTRA Youth Network for over
two years now and I enjoy my work a lot. One of the things which I value the
most is the possibility to meet new, active and dedicated people from the
entire world and also see us, young people, making a change and having an impact
on the surrounding world especially in regards to Sexual and Reproductive
Health and Rights.
One of the actions which we undertook within the ASTRA
Youth Network, in close cooperation with the ASTRA Network, was submitting a
petition to the European Parliament (EP) on introducing mandatory comprehensive
sexuality education classes into schools of the European Union member states in
2011. Another issue raised in the Petition was to support the national
Ministers of Health/Education in implementing such educational programmes by
the EP. The idea was to bring the issue of sexuality education to a different level.
Writing the Petition was quite a long process , the document was finalized at
33 pages! I recieved a lot of support
from my co-workers and other members from ASTRA regarding the content of the Petition.
The rationale and background information on sexuality education was followed by
information on the European Union and what it has already done and said on this
issue as well as case studies from the undersigned countries. The Petition was
signed by seven NGOs from Poland, Romania, Lithuania and Bulgaria.
I sent the document in April 2011 and the first reply,
concerning the receipt of the petition and granting it a register number, was
recieved a month later. In October 2011 we recieved a second letter from the EP
(nice to know they pay attention to keep EU citizents updated on their works)
stating that the Committee on Petitions had begun examination of the Petition
and the European Commission began investigating the various aspects of it. The
Petition was also found admissible and refered to another Committee for more
information, namely the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food
Safety.
After this letter there was a long waiting period. In
March 2012 we recieved a final reply. It was a positive sign in terms of us
actually recieving a reply from Brussels, it also confirmed that the European
Parliament petition mechanism really works. As to the content of the
reply - the EP confirmed the importance of education on sexual health among
young people and that it has a positive effect on their health and prevention
of unwanted pregnancies and HIV/AIDS. It also showed to the expertise of the
Eurydice Network which stated that sex education is often included in the
national school cirricula (really?). However, the EU is not in the position to
evaluate wether „significant disparities (...) in access to comprehensive
sexual health education exist across the EU” as ASTRA Youth described in the
Petition (we are however more than sure that such disparities exist, especially
considering the New Member States and the older ones). The EU has moreover no
power to influence the national school cirricula and hence the case is
considered closed.
This petition has proven that regarding Sexual and
Reproductive Health and Rights issues it can be a difficult task to rely solely
on the intergovernmental institutions. It is also a sign that we must take our
issue into our own hands – which too can be difficult but actions on local
level can grow bigger with time. How can they grow bigger? With the support of
young people who wish to do something for their peers, their community and
themselves. Young people who see the connection between their lives and the
lives of their peers in other countries.
We are currently the largest generation of youth that ever lived on this
planet – we CAN make a change and the process has already begun.
*ASTRA Youth is an informal
group of young advocates for sexual and reproductive health and rights from the
Central and Eastern Europe region and Balkan countries. It was launched in 2004
as a youth wing of the ASTRA Network. ASTRA Youth is especially dedicated to
advocacy for the implementation of comprehensive and reliable sex education in
the school curriculum, access to science-based, free of indoctrination
information on sex, HIV/AIDS prevention and youth friendly services among
adolescents as well as the participation of young people in the policy
development and decision making processes regarding SRHR. - www.astra.org.pl/youth
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