Reproductive health is an official subject in the Togolese education system. However it often times gets overlooked or rushed at the end of the year due to exams. As a result for many young CEG girls, the basic knowledge about their changing bodies is left as mystery, Girls in CEG or “middle school” need to be taught the basics of reproductive health in order to better understand their bodies, and know how to combat harmful myths.
Introduction
If what you want to do in village is educate girls on the basics of reproductive health, then this project can help you put together and implement a club or class.
Steps
There are certain things that need to be planned and considered in order to hold a sexual reproductive health class/club. Use the below mentioned steps to make sure that your class/club is a success.
- Who should you contact in village to help you initiate this project? Having a counterpart in village who feels strongly about your idea, and is willing to partner with you to help implement it is important. (Because this activity deals with sensitive or even embarrassing issues, a female counterpart is an asset. Young girls will feel more comfortable discussing their bodies with a female counterpart.
- Possible Partner Suggestions:
- Primary Homologue
- Hospital Staff
- Affaire Social Staff (equivalent to a social worker)
- Teacher
- Choose the location of your event, picking a place that suites the specific needs of your class or club is important. The best location for either class or club will be the school, the students will already be familiar with the location.
- Get the support of important members in the community for your club or class. Depending on the village, reproductive health can be a controversial topic, so make sure to find time to speak with your chief, Imam, priest, or hospital staff so that they can “bless” your club or class. More importantly you need the permission of the school, which means talking with your director and getting his/her “blessing” to have the class or club and use the school as a location.
- Pick a date and time for your club or class. If you decide to make it a class versus a club, you will have to work with the school to find scheduled time weekly for your lesson. Making it a class also kind of makes it mandatory for students to attend. If you do a club instead you will need to pick a regular meeting time, whether weekly or monthly. Also consider how busy your possible participants will be with school work and house work, pick a day when they only have morning classes if you can. Make sure that your intended audience is actually available to attend your club/class.
Once you have tackled the above steps you are ready to start.
Content
Make sure that any content you teach in your class has been cleared with your schools director to keep yourself from getting into any controversies.
Possible topics that should be discussed:
- The steps and signs of puberty
- How girls regulatory cycle works
- The anatomy of the vagina
- Common myths and misconceptions about puberty
- Common myths and misconceptions about sex
- The consequences of early pregnancy
- Safe-sex practices
- STIs and HIV/AIDS
*The above topics should be mostly covered in your CHAMP toolkit. Combine or separate the above sessions, gloss over them or go in to intimate detail, cover what your participants want to know. Hold copious amounts of Q&A’s after each session. Create a safe place to say what they want, the more open and trusting the atmosphere you create for the subject, the better it will go.
Having a homologue around for this project is very useful, however if your chosen homologue is not an expert in the subject of reproductive health, it can be helpful from time to time, to call on a health professional to come and elaborate on technical topics as they come up. You don’t want to give your participants poor or incorrect information.
Activities:
- When discussing the anatomy of the vagina and women’s regulatory cycle have images to show them, simple diagrams and images are endlessly useful. Find some online to print out or draw them yourself.
- Create a comment and questions box, encourage the participants to ask questions any questions. Let them know that they can write out embarrassing or controversial questions and put them in the box anonymously. During the following session read and answer the questions
- Use the True or False Brise-Glace to open up a discussion about common misconception and myths about sex or puberty. Have two signs made, one that says true, and one that says false. Place them on opposite sides of the room and have the participants stand in the center. Read each myth and let them choose whether the myth is true or false by walking to one of the two sides. Ask a person on each side to defend their choice and state why a myth is true or false.
- HIV/AIDS discussions are very important, however more important than simply discussing the transmission of the disease is to discuss how to prevent it, and also how those who have the disease should be treated. Ask the participants to discuss what they would do if a stranger or distant acquaintance in village contracted HIV, then ask them what they would do if an immediate family member contracted HIV, finally ask them how they would want others to treat them if they contracted HIV.
Monitoring and Evaluation
This is a critical step in a project and something that should be considered a part of every project large or small.
For a sexual reproductive health club/class, make sure to send around a sign in sheet that takes down the name and ages of all the participants, this info is crucial for volunteer reporting.
A simple survey weekly or monthly survey that asks questions that pertain to the content of the session is an easy way to make sure that your participants are retaining information.
Other Resources
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0011/001159/115968e.pdf – Comprehensive Information on Teaching Reproductive Health
http://health.allrefer.com/health/vagina-female-reproductive-anatomy-1.html – Images of female reproductive anatomy
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