By Dr Kanchada Piriyarangsan | Project Leader
CCF has organized the project “400 Youths Combat Teen Pregnancy in Thailand” for two years now from March 2016 to February 2018. The objective of this project is to build the capacity of Youth Leaders to help mobilize reducing teen pregnancy. The project covers five provinces, which include Ubonratchathani, Mukdaharn, Loei, Buriram and Payao. These five provinces have shown a continuous increasing rate in teen pregnancy between 2000 and 2012. This is mainly caused by the lack of knowledge, lack of understanding of reproductive health and lack of life skill. Besides, the advance in technology has allowed teenagers to access all types of media without border.
The methodology of this project emphasizes on building a participatory approach with schools in selecting students who possess leadership skills to attend the Youth Camp training. The Youth Leaders were trained to understand sexual health, build communication skills in order to convey the message about the sexual health and to produce media to help create awareness in their schools. After the training, they would have planned a campaign to share the knowledge to other children and youths in their schools and communities with the guidance from the responsible teacher and CCF staff.
During the two-year project period, the participants from 33 schools participated. 657 Youth Leaders have attended the training. They have conducted 4 – 6 times per year a campaign on understanding the sexual health in order to convey the proper message to their peers in the schools and communities. 10,659 children and youths and 8,658 parents attended the training. Different media from five provinces such as an exhibition board, wall newspapers, the voice over the wire and other campaigns have been used to help convey the knowledge on the sexual health in the schools and communities. Each province has conducted its own specific campaign. For example, the youth leaders from Ubonratchathani conducted a shadow play; the ones from Payao conducted a short video clip, and the ones from Leoi conducted a learning base, a short story book and shadow play. Moreover, Buriram’s youth leaders conducted a drawing and a short video while Mukdaharn’s ones conducted the campaign “Friends Help Friends” and gave counseling on the sexual health and education. The content of the campaign was designed at the appropriate level to each age group. For example, the age group of grade 1 – 3 would learn about the difference between male and female; the age group of grade 4 – 6 would learn about their own physical and development of teen sexual behavior; the age group of grade 7-9 would learn about how to say “no” to protect themselves from being sexually abused. In addition to running the campaign and activity with children and youth, youth leaders also organized an exchange of knowledge with parents. The activity “Happy Saturday” has been used as a platform for parents to discuss openly about sex health with children and youths as well as provide them the guidance.
Each school has developed many types of media that help to reach more children. Chainarong, a youth leader from Payao told us “I am proud to become a youth leader and am able to share my knowledge about sex education with my junior as well as my friends. They have changed their attitude that it is necessary to learn about sexual education. No one should feel shy to talk about it. I have chosen to produce a short video clip. Currently, people have a faster and wider access to internet. A short video clip is easy for most people to understand. People are interested and can quickly remember.” The statement made by Kru Nisakorn from Payao is correct that “usually sexual education is conducted in the physical education class only and it is all about the theory without any supporting activity; therefore, children are not so interested. Children are more responsive and come up with more questions when media are used as an example case similar to their daily life is given.”
Thank you to our donors for your support to the project “400 Youths Combat Teen Pregnancy in Thailand” for youths to develop and gain leadership skills. Youths have volunteered to share their understanding of sexual health to other children and youths in their communities. However, to achieve the goal in combatting teen pregnancy, it is necessary that all parties involved in youth development and parents continuously participate and take part in preventing activity as well as finding a long-term solution in order to solve this problem in a sustainable manner.
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By Dr Kanchad Piriyarangsan | Project Leader
By Kanchada Piriyarangsan | Project Leader
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