By Dr Venkatraman Chandra-Mouli and Marina Plesons
How can community engagement be used to promote young people’s sexual and reproductive health in conservative countries? Two education programs in Pakistan offer some answers.
Around the world, there is deep-seeded discomfort about adolescent sexuality outside of marriage. Many don’t accept that teenagers have sex; those that do typically see it as a problem only made worse by sexuality education. As a result, policymakers are reticent, school heads and teachers are uncomfortable and community groups are often opposed to sexuality education, paralyzing action in many countries.
There are consequently few examples of scaled-up and sustainable programmes to educate young people about sexual and reproductive health in an age-appropriate and context-specific way. Yet a small number of organisations, including Aahung and Rutgers WPF in Pakistan – an indigenous and Dutch organisation, respectively – are coming to understand and navigate these obstacles, by learning through their own experience of engaging with communities.
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Marina Plesons is an MPH student in the Department of Global Health, interning with the World Health Organization; she is also the co-founder of Health Advocacy Innovations.