Genesis and contents of value-based human love, sexuality and family life education programme in Nigeria – I

Abstract

Background: The first stand-alone sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) clinic developed in Nigeria in 1974 from the Endemic Diseases Clinic of the referral consultants’ Medical Out-Patients’ (MOP) Clinic of the University College Hospital, Ibadan. At that time, a good number of patients seen there included subjects with complications of the STDs, in both males and females. Young people were hardly seen at that clinic then. By the 1980s young people began to be seen there. Because of this, a purely preventative extra-curricular health education programme was started for secondary schools in Ibadan. The need for the programme to be value-based also evolved and all the community values in the locality were included in a values clarification component of the programme. Progression: Over time, some teachers of the adolescents as well as some of their parents showed interest in the programme and together joined the youth programme as well as developed the expanded programme for the adults, families and leadership audiences. The basis of these expansions were the participants further needs identified along the previous programme as existed. This article is a review of the programme and the in-course researches conducted on it over the 37 year old programme in this June 2023. Current programme: As of today, a full programme of 46 lecture and seminar-workshop topics has developed as well as subsidiaries thereof, run as individual lecture-seminars or as adolescents, adults, family, or advanced follow-up community leadership programmes. This article is a summary presentation of the development and contents of the programme as well as some of the within-service research products thereof. Conclusion: It is hoped that the nature and importance of this programme may be appreciated as a complement to the “value-free” ones already well known; for a truly socially healthy, free and mutually respectful world.