S.O.S (Sexuality at Schools)

Name of the activity: S.O.S (Sexuality at Schools)

Country/NMO: Belgium (BeMSA)

Program: Realizing Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights

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:

Sexual education at school is a volunteer project, initiated by BeMSA and supported by ICRH and Sensoa. With this initiative, we want to give adolescents access to reliable information about sexuality, relationships, contraception and STD prevention. In an airy educational way, we try to give the youngsters the ability to make informed and individual decisions about their body and health. In addition, we want to break some existing myths about these topics. Medical students go to high schools in which young people (13-17 years) get a four hour session. The SOS project is a form of peer education in which young people are supported to bring about a health-promoting behavioral change with other young people. This leads to a lower threshold for talking about sensitive subjects.

Focus area:

Comprehensive Sexuality Education

Problem statement:

In the past years, we have seen a rise in STIs in the general population. By example, recently the Brussels Express published that chlamydia rose from 9.1/100,000 inhabitants in 2002, to 60.1/100,000 inhabitants in 2016. One of the reasons could be potentially attributed to the lax regulation of CSE. Besides, due to the stigmatization of sexuality as such, the evidenced-based CSE is neglected and not paid the attention it deserves. Which could lead to neglection of vulnerable groups.

Target groups:

Medical students, Healthcare Students, Youth

Beneficiaries:

General population, Medical students, Healthcare Students, Youth, Teachers

Objectives and indicators of success:

“Objectives: To improve the knowledge about sex and sexuality

Indicators: evaluation report improvement after a S.O.S. lesson has been given.

Goal: Improvement of knowledge about sex and sexuality

Objective: Create awareness concerning Sexual and Reproductive health

Indicators: evaluation report improvement after a S.O.S. lesson has been given.

Goal: Making people aware about their Sexual and Reproductive health

Objective: Break Myths about Sexuality and Reproductive Health within our target group.

Indicator: Student’s reaction on our evaluation form

Goal: Destigmatize and break taboos within our target group

Objective: Teach healthcare students peer-educational techniques

Indicator: Informal Peer-assessment after CSE sessions.

Goal: Improvement of comprehensive education skill within the healthcare students.

Objective: Create a low threshold environment with the students

Indicators: The students will be willing to engage during the workshop.

Goal: Facilitate a safe-space environment where the students are free to engage.”

Methodology:

The project is a form of peer education in which young people are supported to bring about a health-promoting behavioral change with other young people.

The peer-educators are trained by their local committee, they are introduced in basic pedagogical skills and they have hand-on practice where they can apply the techniques they just learned.

The classes are given to a group of 20 -25 high school students by two peer-educators, most of the time a cis-gender women and men. First, we start with an energizers to loose the tension. Second, we set-up rules which we refer when someones violates them. Third, we start in the peer-educational class. The class is most of the time content based and varies from time to time depending on the students knowledge. Finally, the students are split in their genders and they can ask anonymously questions. At the end of the activity, we give them an evaluation form where they can fill-in the questions mentioned below.

Plans for evaluation:

The first evaluation includes the following questions:

– Is there a subject that you wanted to know more about?

– Do you feel that we answered all your questions?

– Do you have remaining questions?

– What are your remaining questions?

– Afterwards the outcomes will be compared with the initial statistics.

The second evaluation includes peer-assessment from the peer-educators where they give feedback from the general organisation of S.O.S within their local committees..”

Nationally the overall organization is reviewed by asking each Project Manager to fill-in a google form in order to know the overall satisfaction of the year.