We talk CSE – IFMSA-Egypt

Name of the activity: We talk CSE

Country/NMO: IFMSA-Egypt

Program: Realizing Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights

Contact information: contact [email protected] to get in touch with the Activity Coordinator

Type of the activity: Continuous Activity

Category: Campaign

Focus area: Comprehensive Sexuality Education

Sustainable Development Goals addressed: GOAL 3: GOOD HEALTH AND WELL-BEING

General description:

We aim at implementing comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) programs in Egypt to fulfill the ICPD’s goals of:
Providing young people and adolescents with knowledge about sexual and reproductive health to improve their quality of life. Providing medical students with adequate information about sexual health to make them well equipped as future healthcare providers in addition to improving their quality of life and fulfilling their rights to access information about sexual health.

Problem statement:

In Egypt, we face multiple obstacles to access CSE. This distorts Adolescents’ development and is the underlying reason for many physical & psychological disorders. They are at risk of; harassments, lack of social support, lack of CSE which leads to many issues such as; pornography addiction (which accounts for 93% in boys and 62% in girls), substance abuse, & STDs. This further leads to fatal endings such as; suicide (the 2nd cause of death in adolescents) & traumatic disorders

Target groups:

Medical students, Children, Youth

Beneficiaries:

General population, Women

Objectives:

Objective 1: Comprehensively educating at least 27 medical students about sexuality and sexual health and their different aspects through a series of sessions in collaboration with Love Matters, by the end of September 2022.

Objective 2: Graduating a new batch of CSE trainers who are able to pass on their gained knowledge and educate more medical students in their LCs as well as their respective communities about sexuality and sexual health, by the end of September 2022.

Objective 3: Raising awareness about puberty essentials to adolescent girls and breaking the ice around menstruation through school visits in 3 different governorates as a start point during the International adolescents Health week before the end of March 2022.

Objective 4: Empowering IFMSA-Egypt LCs to contribute to the creation of the online campaign by an open competition between the LCs before the end of September 2022.

Indicators of Success:

1.1: The CSE Camp concept note is drafted and sent to LMA.
1.2: The Pre and post assessments of the Camp are filled in by at least 80% of the participants.
1.3: there is an increase of the knowledge of participants in the post assessment analysis by more than 40%
1.4: The CSE Camp report is drafted and sent for LMA.
2.1: At least 50% of the participants have facilitated a session/designed an activity about any CSE related topic in their LCs.
2.2: At least 10 LCs filled in the show of interest and enrollment forms for their CSE activities.
3.1: The call for school visits is open and all the needed approvals for the schools are obtained.
3.2: The school visits report is drafted with the recommendations for the upcoming waves.
4.1: The “call for LCs’ contributions” competition is opened and all the responses are evaluated.
4.2: The winner’s online campaign is published on IFMSA-Egypt page.

Methodology:

1:A call for inputs was conducted and received116response
2:research was done to get updates on CSE,what are the national needs now and the best way to approach them
3:We created our plan for the“We talk CSE”activity,so a call for activity coordinator was opened started drafting the activity proposal
4:on 3Main pillars,CB,Awareness and LCs contributions
CB: 2 CSE camps were done with Love Matters in learning blocks from CSE 101 to CSE 201. The CSE 101 was done from 24:26/3 and the CSE 201 was done on 24:26/8
Awareness: the target group was Girls between (12-16).we did a group of School visits that targets to speak up about different CSE topics including menstruation in the IAHW in 3 different governorates:
-Greater Cairo-29/3.-Delta-23/3.-Sohag-30/3
LCs contributions: creating the online campaign to be Launched in the IAHW themed “Transitions” to focus on the crucial transitions that adolescents go through,10 LCs
5: LCs followed up with AC for guidance.
6:The final report was made

Plans for evaluation:

– Usage of Pre/Post Assessment & Feedback forms before and after each activity
– Usage of flayers count as a mean of verification
– Periodically sending a report to the national officer about the national work
– Monthly collecting local activities reports from the local coordinators
– Receiving follow up feedback from the externals

External collaborations:

For the CSE Camps, it was done fully funded in collaboration with Love matters Arabic, a sustainable partner with IFMSA-Egypt binded by an MOU.
For the school visits, it was done with ESAM (Egyptian Society For Adolescent Medicine) an organization working on adolescents Health awareness as they provided us with the materials and booklets that were distributed among the students during the visits.