Healthy Choices-Guiding teens in making reproductive health decisions

The holiday in Kenya is here, a long one at that and most parents especially of young teens are a worried lot about the amount of free time the children have thanks to a two month holiday.

However parents in Seme sub county in Siaya county have little to be worried about after their children successfully completed a seven week program on Sexual and Reproductive Health. The over 400 pupils aged between 10–14 in primary schools around West Seme location graduated with knowledge on sex and sexuality.

Emmanuel Arinda is a 10 year old boy and one of the graduates. During the graduation he took through his peers on a recap of the lessons and activities they had gone through. Remember were taught about abstain from sex and being firm in our decisions This earns him a special cheer from the pupils, three claps-for you, three claps –for me, three claps for us.

A healthy Choice Handbook the Pupils use during the program

The pupils are under the Healthy Choices program that educates young teens .Every school day for an hour, the pupils are put in groups of 16 and go through weekly lessons. Jecinta Ruth is the Program Cordinator for St.Francis Oriang Development Centre that carries out the DREAMS activity in West Seme under the Henry Jackson Foundation.

In the first week of training the children are taught about being responsible and what it entails, second week they learn about reproductive health to help them understand their bodies and what happens, this is followed by lessons on HIV/AIDS

On the fourth week of learning the children are taught on SWAT techniques this is a technique guides them on negotiation techniques when faced with

The S stands for Saying No to sexual advances, W for why you are saying no, A is for providing alternative and lastly the T is for talking it out says Dorothy a class seven pupil at Ranen primary school.

Other schools in the area that have benefited are Kirindo,Pith Kochiel,Magwako,Nyatigo,Nyalik,Oriang and Alwala primary schools.

The Healthy choices program is one of the behavioral change programs under the dreams project. Others are my health my choice targeting ages 13–17, families matters for care givers with children between 9–12 years and Respects K targeting ages 20–24.

DREAMS, a new initiative of PEPFAR, the Gates Foundation and the Nike Foundation, is helping adolescent girls and young women lead Determined, Resilient, Empowered, AIDS-free, Mentored and Safe lives.It is implemented in four counties in the country, Kisumu, Homa bay, Siaya and Nairobi.

In Nairobi it is implemented in the slums while in the other counties it targets both rural and urban dwellers.

The project is implemented in Seme through the Henry Jackson Foundation.It works with St.Francis Oriang CBO in West Seme and Pamoja CBO in East Seme.

Seme Sub county just like the other sub counties in the targeted counties have high cases of new infections among adolescents.

While Kenya has achieved tremendous success in addressing HIV and AIDS, rising cases of teenage pregnancy and disproportionately high rates of new HIV infections, Sexually Transmitted Infections and Gender-Based Violence (GBV) among adolescent girls and young women indicate the need for a stronger response, particularly since in recent years, most of the new HIV infections in the country are borne by girls ages 15–24.

A recent study by the Global Burden of Disease has said that Kenya is reporting a dramatic increase in new infections. In 2015 HIV estimates, there were 72,000 new HIV infections among adults,however of the new infections,46% of it is among adolescents and young people between the ages of 15 to 24 years.

Willis Osoo is one of the teachers who has been teaching in the healthy choices program. He teaches at Kirindo primary school which is near the beach. He says they have been having problems of drop out of girls from school before the project came in.

You know we have fishermen who are moneyed and use it to lure the young girls impregnating them forcing them to drop out of school and some even get married at an early age.But we are happy, this year we have not had such cases especially with the class eight candidates

Other issues that affect Seme subcounty is that of child sexual abuse which is a topic that the children are taken through at the fifth week of learning. They are taught on the times when such abuse Is likely to take place, the perpetrators and what to do in case one is sexually abused.

The sixth week is all about negotiation skills while the last week the children do role plays on what they have learned. They are given a healthy choices handbook with these lessons which they take home and together with their parents carry out the days assignments.

Emmanuel and Dorothy say they are well equipped for the holiday season and will practice everything they have learned. Emmanuel vows to teach his friends who might have not benefited from the learning while Dorothy says she will avoid the company she has been keeping which influenced her negatively.