Communication and consultancy on adolescent reproductive health among secondary school and junior high school students is one of important activities that provincial Family Planning Association (FPA). In recent years, the association has cooperated with many schools in the province to organize this meaningful activity and was enthusiastically responded by students.
An issue concerns students
There were many students taking part in the counseling session on adolescent reproductive health at Phu My secondary school (TDM City). The consequences of teenage pregnancy and adolescent sex assault were two topics raised by members of FPA for discussion. At the secondary- school age, teenagers have many changes in psycho-physiology, so these topics were enthusiastically responded. They were divided into groups to discuss each topic, presented their ideas, and then FPA’s members commented and supplement the ideas with more knowledge. In addition, students also talked about their concerns about body changes that they are experiencing. All questions were answered thoroughly to help students have more useful knowledge to protect, take care of themselves.
Students of Phu My secondary school express their opinions on reproductive health.
At Tuong Binh Hiep secondary school, a counseling session on adolescent reproductive health organized by FPA in early November also received the enthusiastic participation of students. Student Vo Trieu Vy said: "I was very excited when attending this session, because I was able to learn more about reproductive health".
To provide the right direction for teenagers
So far, this program has been implemented for 2 years. In 2017, the association organized this activity in 39 schools. According to the plan, in 2018, FPA organizes this activity in 37 secondary schools and high schools in the province. Ms. La Thi Hai, Vice Chairwoman of Provincial FPA, said: "These contents are essential in adolescent reproductive health care. Most schools agreed on these contents, because these closely match teenager needs. While communicating, interacting with students was very important, since then they talked about their thoughts and problems. We helped them to understand correctly the changes, sexual orientation, and helped them overcome physical and psychological effects through this period".
Throughout these sessions, students paid much attention to topics posed by FPA, especially, heterosexual friendship and love, adolescent sexual assault and sexual abuse. After being consulted by FPA, they were more confident to ask questions... Huynh Thi Diem Le, a teacher of Phu My secondary school (TDM City), said reproductive health care for students was important to the school. The school organized many discusses, talks to help students better understand their changes through puberty. As an organizer of reproductive health counseling sessions at the school, Ms. Le said: "Thanks to these talks, they have better understanding of their changes in reproductive health. From the knowledge they had gained, students feel more confident when they encounter changes related to reproductive health and know how to protect themselves from being abused by bad persons".
Apart from giving knowledge about adolescent reproductive health, the program also gave the correct orientation to teenagers. So this program should be maintained and implemented more often. "This is important for students to protect themselves when it comes to similar situations..." Ms. Hai emphasized.
Reported by Hong Thuan – Translated by Ngoc Huynh
