Project Virus

Name of the activity: Project Virus

Country/NMO: Slovenia (SloMSIC)

Program: HIV/AIDS & Other STIs

Contact information: [email protected]

Type of the activity: Education. Education on health issues for specific societal groups, either in the form of projects (set of tasks for a certain group over a fixed period of time), events (something notable that happens) or conferences (form meeting about ideas related to a particular topic, usually over several days).

General description:

Project Virus was established with the aim of providing sex education focusing on topics of reproductive health, sexuality, STIs and contraception, as we feel that current sex education is lacking in our school curriculum. To the contrary to the existing CSE which is built on a risk-based approach, our programme intends to build a positive attitude towards sexuality. Through sex-positive approach and peer-led discussion young people are provided with knowledge and skills to help them make informed decisions.

Focus area:

Raising awareness among the general public about STIs

Problem statement:

In Slovenia comprehensive sexual education is not fully integrated into the curriculum, putting the youth at risk of getting STIs and unwanted pregnancies. STIs also constitute an enormous burden to our healthcare system and the stigmatisation of LGBTQIA+ communities continues to be present in our society. As such we feel that it is of the utmost importance to provide CSE with our workshops, making sure that young people exposed to the abundance of (mis)information, receive accurate data.

Target groups:

General population, Medical students, Youth, Refugees, LGBTQIA+ community

Beneficiaries:

General population, Medical students, Youth, Refugees, LGBTQIA+ community

Objectives and indicators of success:

-Implement more CSE into the general education of youth by carrying out at least 80 workshops in 2019.

-Teach high schoolers about sexually transmitted infections, what is adequate protection against them and how they are treatable at 80 workshops in 2019, testing their acquired knowledge with a quiz at the end of the workshop.

-Inform the general public regarding HPV by organising seminars and workshops. Indicator of success is the number of people we are going to educate, 30 per seminar, and another 200 with raising awareness on public stands.

-Raise awareness among the general public about HIV/AIDS with the activities connected to the 1. of December, the World AIDS day. Indicator of success is the reach of our social media campaign, reaching 10000 people.

-Be apart of the educational intervention for medical students by organising a convention covering the topics of reproductive and sexual health. The indicator of success is a 70% passing score on a standardised test that follows the conference.

Methodology:

We are going to conduct 80 CSE peer to peer workshops, focused on creating a sex positive atmosphere with peer-led discussion.

We are going to facilitate specific workshops regarding HPV, organize a social media campaign focused on HPV transmission, vaccination and possible complications of infection and also share this information on public stands.

We are going to raise awareness among the general public regarding HIV/AIDS with social media campaign for the 1. of December, the world AIDS day.

We are going to coordinate a CSE regional training for medical students on the topic of reproductive and sexual health.

Plans for evaluation:

We are going to gather feedback of the students and the questions which were asked during our CSE workshops and conduct a quiz at the end of the workshop, evaluating their gathered knowledge. Additionally we are expecting positive feedback from the professors that already contact us every year in order to carry out the CSE workshops for the new students. We are going to monitor the reach of our social media campaign, striving towards having a larger reach of our 1. of December campaign than last year additionally to reaching 10 000 people with the HPV campaign. Regarding the conference for medical students our goal is that 80% of students reach the passing score on the final standardised test.