Wants to Know? – Brazil (IFMSA-Brazil)

Name of the activity: Wants to Know?

Country/NMO: Brazil (IFMSA-Brazil)

Program: Comprehensive Sexuality Education

Contact information: [email protected]

Type of the activity: Education

General description:

The “Wants to Know?” Is a project of the local committee UFRN of IFMSA Brazil whose main target sex workers in the city of Natal-RN. The beginning of the project was with application questionnaires to screen the most urgent cases to be sent to outpatient clinics and to enable the appointments for the whole semester. The coordination applied them with the help of projects parallel to it. The second step was dissemination and registration for the project. Once the initial stages were completed, the project was trained with all 12 participants. In addition to the outpatient clinics, two actions were performed, along with sex workers, which we call “afternoon tea.” We’ll finish the project with a closing meeting for feedback. As much about developing technical skills, but mainly human skills like communication and empathy. Discovering the reality of other people and learning how to deal with these experiences as future doctors and human beings is the most enchanting part of the project.

Focus area:

Peer Education with adolescents and young people on a variety of topics pertaining to Sexual Health

Problem statement:

The Unique System of Health in Brazil talks about universality, but prostitutes often are victim of prejudice inside the health system. This is a obstacle to teach about the risks from their work.

Target groups and beneficiaries:

The target group of the activity are the sex professionals, including ciswomen and transwomen, and the beneficiaries are medical students and people who pay for the work of these professionals.

Objectives and indicators of success:

Discuss with sex professionals about the risks relationed with work; How medical students can approach sex professionals; Give information about health system to the sex professionals; Exchange experiences between the students and sex professionals. The indicators are the adhesion to the activity and the impact evaluation with questions about the activity and about how to approach this population.

Methodology:

The project consist of two training meetings, three gynecological outpatient clinics, two “Afternoon Tea” and a closing meeting. The project will have 12 students, 5 coordinators and 7 subscribed, which will be selected by the coordinators from an online questionnaire where they can demonstrate the reason of interest in the Project. Each of these participants will participate of the five moments.

Plans for evaluation:

Questionnaires will be applied before and after the intervention. A satisfaction questionnaire will also be applied. For the recruitment of sex workers to the outpatient clinic, the coordinators performed an active search on “Casas Vidas” throughout the first half of the current year in order to explain the project and to apply a questionnaire on some socioeconomic and health aspects of the women.