Scaling up a reproductive health curriculum in youth training courses

Abstract

Considering the reproductive health information and service needs of adolescents and youth the Population Councils Frontiers in Reproductive Health (FRONTIERS) Program in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare the Urban Family Health Partnership and two nongovernmental service delivery partners carried out the Global Youth project in northwestern Bangladesh from 1999-2003. The study used a quasi-experimental design with pre-post measurements and two experimental strategies. Strategy I provided reproductive health education to out-of school adolescents linked with adolescent-friendly services at health facilities while the Strategy II provided reproductive health education to both in- and out-of school adolescents linked with adolescent-friendly services. Teachers and facilitators were trained to provide the reproductive health education to in-school and out-of-school adolescents respectively and service providers were trained on rendering youth friendly services. Thetrained teachers imparted reproductive health education to students in grades eight and 11 in eight secondary schools. An adolescent reproductive health curriculum was developed with the active participation of teachers facilitators and program managers. The contents of the curriculum were selected on the basis of findings from focus group discussions with teachers parents religious and community leaders. The important lesson learned from the Global Youth project was that reproductive health education could increase reproductive health knowledge in adolescents particularly in areas related to reproductive biology family planning pregnancy sexually transmitted infections (STIs) HIV and AIDS. The population based surveys further showed that contrary to common belief reproductive health education does not increase sexual activity; instead it increases the use of condoms among sexually active youth. (excerpt)