Reproductive Health Education which provides accurate information about human sexuality especially to the young has become imperative more than ever before in the face of globalization, modernization and internet access.
Through reproductive health and rights education the young ones especially the girls are thought the importance of their reproductive organs, body autonomy, pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, hazards of unsafe abortion and the need to value and respect their sexual organs and not to make them object of pleasure to other people.
To stress the importance it attaches to reproductive health education, on Wednesday, October 12, 2022, IRISE Organisation, an NGO that champions and promotes sexual reproductive health and right education, especially for young women and adolescent girls, took their campaign to Altitude Schools at Agor Palace Way, Lagos State, to educate the students on the need to know about their reproductive health and sexuality rights.
The Executive Director, IRISE, Omodele Ibitoye Ejeh, a Counselling Teacher with over 20 years of international Counselling Experience said her NGO champions and promotes sexual reproductive health and right education, especially for young women and adolescent girls, “It is important for this education to reach young people before they become sexually active and after they are sexually active. We call it life skills because it is curriculum based kind of education that actually help them make informed choices as young people and when they become adults, to make responsible choices and decisions that are not influenced around their sexual reproductive health, as you can see when it comes to issues pertaining pregnancy and unwanted pregnancy, because the society stigmatizes young girls for their rights to bodily autonomy, their right to make decisions over if they want to carry pregnancy or not, so our job and some civil society organisations, is to take the education to the most marginalized women and girls and to also gain allies, men and boys allies because this is not the battle of sexes, this is a cause that we all have to champion, this is an oppression that we all have to fight against, so the men and boys shouldn’t be left out in this great cause.”
Ejeh said women should form allies for men to be able to understand what is stigma and gender based violence, the risk and danger around it. “We have to actually be educated and win allies to be able to win this oppressive system.”
On how successful the campaign has been since commencement, she said “IRISE started this campaign in 2013 although we started very small, but now with support from organisations that actually believe in what we do, we have been able to reach larger audience, impact more people, save more lives and transform more lives and they are happy that we are doing it.”
On reason for choosing Altitude Schools, she said “Altitude Schools has been really supportive in terms of trying to educate their students beyond their traditional school curriculum, so we actually see the potential in the girls, we actually see that they have a lot of female students and we see potential in them. It is important to educate these girls before they actually graduate from the traditional school system, and of course, the governing body of the school has been very supportive.”
Martins Bamiteko, a Social Behaviour & Communication Change Expert from Marie Stopes International Nigeria, speaking on the importance of reproductive health says “Basically the importance of reproductive health education is to enable these children to have the right knowledge of what will shape their future so that they will be able to make informed decisions, and not having cut and join information in the outside world which are necessarily not correct that will give them a wrong perspective or wrong idea of their reproductive health right as they grow up. So this helps them to make informed decisions at secondary school age, they can avoid unwanted pregnancies and diseases, so that is basically what we are doing.”
On how effective the reproductive health education campaign has been, he said it has been effective, because students at this age now know their rights, they are being guided now against sexual exploitation, “They now know the proper way people should talk to them or even touch them, because we are having feedback from these students, we know it is working.”
The officials of the school and students took turns to speak on their impressions about the campaign, what they understand by reproductive health, challenges and solutions.
Michael Ganiyu, the Principal of Altitude College said, “I am very impressed and happy with the convener of IRISE for bringing such esteemed programme and we look forward to bringing more of such programme because it really helps to guide these young ones, especially girls so that they can be watchful when they find themselves in the larger society.”
He said the school has a good counselling unit and teachers that are experts in the field of reproductive health education, they counsel these girls and give them advice.
Speaking on the peaceful atmosphere in the school he said “Let me start with the owner of the school, the proprietress, she is an educationist with years of experience, and this is her dream, she loves children right from time and what I have seen so far, she will go an extra mile to give them the best. Again she brings in people from time to time, people that are professionals in various areas to come and talk to these children just like what we are having today so that they can be useful to themselves and society at large. So we really appreciate the convener and we hope to see them some other time again. It is not only academic work, there are some other things that add values to their lives and make them complete as students and this is one of such programmes.”
Hope Eguzoro, an English Teacher, an instructor, a life coach and a role model for the students said “As the name of the NGO implies, IRISE, I am so happy today that we are rising for the girl child, and when you talk about women empowerment it goes a long way, because for a very long time there has been this misconception about the girl child being weak in comparison with her male counterpart, but when we have bodies like this that can empower the girl child, that makes them to be at par in the scheme of things. So I think, it is something very commendable, to IRISE I say, kudos, more grease to your elbows, please keep it up, well done”
Bolomope Orezi, an HIV/AIDS Counsellor Tester for ARISE spoke on the issue of HIV/AIDS.
Akande Miracle, a student of Altitude College said it is important to teach young people sexual health education because it makes them to be fully aware of their body, and to also know that their reproductive organs are not object of pleasure to other people, but important organs to be valued and respected.
Eguzoro Blessing, the Head Girl of Altitude College spoke on Gender Disparity and Gender Equality and called for equal treatment between males and females as a way of ameliorating gender based violence.
Other students that spoke include, Aaliyah Ejeh, in her submission decried gender based violence, stigmatization of the girl child through certain cultural norms and practices, hence she called for equal treatment of both male and female children, adding that all genders are equal and must be seen as equal human beings.
Eze Chika on his part called for sensitization of the public on the need to promote and support gender equality. He also urged government to promulgate laws that can help to protect the women.
Ekwueme Emmanuel Chukwuebuka, the Games Prefect of Altitude School, on his part said the best way to prevent HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases, is to avoid sex especially by those that are not of age.
Harmony an SS1 student of Altitude College said the days’ talk has taught her that her body belongs to her and no one else. She said she has been empowered by IRISE to know that she owns her body and has right over her body.
