October 2012
Amber and I planned on giving 2 sexual education charlas in
my last week in site.
One of the greatest strengths about Peace Corps is the
Volunteer made manuals. Pueblo Sano, Vida Sana (Healthy Village,
Health Life) is a composition of sex ed and gender seminars. We planned 2 days of charlas on: STDs, HIV/AIDS, how to use a condom, the risks of teenage
pregnancy, lightly touched family planning and contraceptives. The maestros
told us that they would like us to talk about sexually transmitted diseases to
their third graders and up. This
may sound way too young by North American standards, but it is necessary here
where girls get pregnant as early as 13 years old.
We started out by explaining what STDs are and showed the
kids pictures of various STDs I downloaded from the CDC. They learned what the definition of STD
is and how one contracts them. We
then went into talking about HIV/AIDS.
The manual has a creative activity to explain what HIV/AIDS is.
The main character is the Cuerpo Sano, who was played by the maestro. Kids formed a
circle around them, presenting the healthy body’s defense system. Other kids were given cards as various
diseases. The healthy body first
gets attacked by a cold, and the defense system is able to battle against the
cold. But then the body gets
infected with HIV. The body then
gets attacked by other common diseases, and the HIV character pulls away the
defense system. Eventually, after
the defense system is weakened to just one student, the HIV turns into
AIDS. We then taught the kids the
various forms of contracting HIV.
We ended by telling them that they can prevent STD and
HIV/AIDS.
·
Practice abstinency
·
If you are sexually active, be with only one
partner at a time
·
Use a condom
To elaborate the last point, we demonstrated how to use a
condom on a platano! Yes, it was funny and awesome.
The 2nd day was about
teenage pregnancy. We started off
with a game called A Mi Me Gusta…where
the kids got in a circle. One
person started by saying their name and acted out an activity they liked to
do. For example, “..me llamo Moises, y a mi me gusta…jugar
futból (insert action).” The
person next to you, then introduces you, does your action, introduces
themselves, does their action, so on and so forth. I wrote down all the things the kids liked to do: play soccer, play dolls, fly kites,
etc. We then asked them, “If you
had kids when you were 15, would you be able to do these activities?”
This led us into talking about how
once you have kids, you have more responsibilities, and you lose the time to do
the things you love to do.
