Sex education matters everywhere
This week, the Guttmacher Institute released a call to action: Adolescents in the United States need access to high-quality sexual and reproductive health information and services. They called on the new administration and incoming Congress to remove obstacles to care, including ensuring high-quality sex education.
Guttmacher’s analysis focused on the United States, but the truth is, the barriers they identify are universal. Cost, lack of transportation, a culture that shames teens for having sex at all — the same challenges faced by a teen in Arlington, Virginia are found in rural Zimbabwe or Madagascar.
The consequences can be serious for adolescents: STIs and unintended pregnancies can derail girls’ education in the short term and cost them economic opportunity in the long term. That’s why at MSI we’ve made the decision to put adolescents at the heart of our programs, tailoring services to meet their unique needs.
Providers like Lawrencia Bortioker Borte, an MSI Lady in Ghana, work to equip adolescents with the knowledge they need to make decisions about their sexual health. “Young people lack information about sexual health, some don’t really know what they are up to sexually,” she observes. “So I spend a lot of time educating and guiding them. I also talk about preventing STIs.”
MSI providers like Lawrencia see 4,000 adolescent clients around the world every day, and our proportion of adolescent clients continues to grow. But it didn’t happen by accident: We’ve worked hard since 2017 to make sexual and reproductive healthcare more accessible to teens.
How do we do it? First, we work to engage entire communities, so that parents, community leaders, health workers and policy makers come to understand what adolescents think, feel and need from the adults around them. We work to understand the values of each community. For example, in Sierra Leone, contraception is key to keeping teenage girls in school; in Kenya, awareness of sexual health builds parent-teen rapport and safeguards futures; in Zambia, reproductive choice is central to family economic stability and community growth.
But it’s not enough to convince community gatekeepers — we have to reach the girls themselves! That’s why our country programs have developed youth-friendly marketing that addresses young people’s concerns and speaks to their hopes for the future. We train providers to offer services in a welcoming, accessible way and constantly monitor client exit interviews to make sure we’re connecting with young people where they are.
I would like to answer Guttmacher’s powerful call to action with one of my own. Let’s prioritize adolescent sexual health everywhere; they are the next-generation custodians of our planet and by ensuring their access to sexual and reproductive healthcare, we give young people the chance to complete their education and pursue their dreams, no matter where they live.
