‘ASPIRE’ sets Linden youths right
Mackenzie High School students listen closely as their sexual reproductive rights are explained
Mackenzie High School students listen closely as their sexual reproductive rights are explained

–on questions about sexual reproductive health, rights

A RECENT outreach in Linden has found that despite high levels of early sexual activity in the region, youths still have questions about their sexual reproductive health and rights.
But with the help of the organisation, Advocates for Safe Parenthood: Improving Reproductive Equity (ASPIRE) Youth Network Guyana, many of those youths were last week able to obtain the answers they sought.

This was made possible through the group’s recent launch of its ASPIRE for Greatness Country Tour in collaboration with Linden’s Regional Education Office and several headteachers.
During the tour, the group visited with students at the Mackenzie High, Harmony Secondary, New Silver City Secondary School, and the Christianburg-Wismar Secondary School.

Group Chairman Dennis Glasgow told the Guyana Chronicle that the reason Linden was chosen to pilot the programme was because if the many calls they’d received from the town for assistance in that regard.
“We would have been in conversations with persons who are from Linden,” Glasgow said, “and they noted that there have been a lot of issues arising among young people in regards to sexual behaviours.

A few students from the New Silver City Secondary School along with facilitators of the ASPIRE Youth Network-Guyana

“They wanted somebody to come in and give some input, and we decided that we would start there and see how best we could continue to support the current programmes that Linden already has.”
Glasgow said the group took the time to explain to the kids the various rights a human has, such as the right to say no, the right to abstain, and the right to privacy and also discussed the county’s Sexual Offenses Act.

“On the outreach,” he said, “we would have even heard from teachers that there have been issues where 13-year-olds were accused of raping other 13-year-olds. So they wanted us to address the Sexual Offences Act and how, as young people, there is not necessarily an immunity from the law. We need to really be careful or just abstain.”

Consequently, a string of questions emerged from the youths on topics ranging from the reason for an age of consent to masturbation to follow-ups on the Sexual Offenses Act.
Said he: “The Mackenzie High School experience was one in a million. There was practically a packed auditorium, and you can tell that there was some level of excitement to actually get someone to answer these questions that they have about sex.

“We received a ton of questions. The yearning for, or the interest in knowledge is there, and it is very evident that young people really want to know more about this rather than just going and experiment.”
To those who believe that children should not discuss the topic of sex, Glasgow says that in Guyana, where the age of sexual initiation varies between 12 to14, there is need for sexual health information to be easily accessible.

“The content that we are sharing is not a content that promotes promiscuity or encourages young people to have sex, but it is more so on the premise that the more educated young people are, the more informed our decisions will be about sex,” he said.

The country tours will resume in September, with hopes of visiting out-of-town areas such as Berbice, Essequibo and Bartica, and tackling such additional topics as teenage pregnancy and Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs).

The Aspire Youth Network is almost one year old, and is made up of a local group of some 20 youths seeking to create a platform for discussions on a number of societal and health issues.

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