Adolescents now aware of AIDS, STDs

Participants at a RHIYA Resources Centre in Syedpur. PHOTO: STAR

This was unusual a few months back in Panchagarh, an backward northern district.

After losing his father in childhood, his mother is everything to Nasim.

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He turned adolescent but his mother, an employee of the Islamic Foundation, felt shy to teach him about his physical changes and reproductive health issues.

"I could not ask anybody about those things. Finally came to know about this centre few months ago and got some books. Now I know about myself after attending the RHYIA resource centre. I have become conscious of health and diseases," Nasim told this correspondent.

Nasim's mother allow him to go to the adolescent resources centre run under a European Commission-UNFPA scheme called Reproductive Health Initiative for Youth in Asia (RHIYA).

Now Nasim knows about the changes of his growing physic and also about sexually transmitted AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) / HIV and other diseases and how to protect him from the deadly diseases.

"Once a month we discuss the things with the peer educator and that helps us meet up our curiosity," said Nasim.

Like Nasim, more than 10,000 adolescents in the country are getting knowledge about reproductive health issues across the country.

But all juveniles are not lucky as Nasim is. Nearly 23 percent of the total population of this country are adolescents and most of them grow up with so many wrong concepts about reproductive health issues.

Talking about reproductive health issues at the family level is a taboo in Bangladesh's conservative society. But the situation is different in some places in the northwestern region.

Parents in some parts of Nilphamari, Panchaghar and Kurigram districts discus safe sex, STDs and other issues with their adolescent children, who are taught on these issues under the RHIYA project.

"I have sent two of my daughters to RHIYA resource centre to learn about safe sex. I also discuss these things with them," Shamsun Nahar, a resident of Syedpur in Nilphamari district, told journalists.

She added: There is no reason to feel shy of talking about these issues, as we have to learn and discuss these to lead a safe life."

Sohel Akhter, a member of RHIYA's guardians' committee in the area, also expressed similar views.

He said adolescents need to learn these things right from this age to remain safe from AIDS and other STDs.

Taib Ali, field officer of RHIYA scheme in Syedpur being implemented by the Family Planning Association of Bangladesh (FPAB), said currently 100 adolescents are enrolled with different resource centres under the project.

"At first parents did not agree to let their kids to learn these things. Then we had sessions with them and reminded them the problems they had felt in their adolescent age. It worked very nicely and they allowed us," said Taib who works at Chamragudam in Syedpur among children of stranded Pakistanis.

They are taught about hygienic living, physical changes among adolescents, safe sex and other related issues, he added.

Misti, a 15-year-old girl in Syedpur, said, "I learnt what is AIDS, how it spreads and how to remain safe from this deadly disease."

Asked, she added, "What I am learning would help me become a responsible and good mother."

Sixteen-year-old Nanni of the same area said AIDS destroys the built-in resistance against diseases in human body. One has to remain alert against making love with unknown people and should use condom to remain safe from this disease, she added.

Under the RHIYA project, FPAB's Syedpur and Panchaghar units have also set up satellite clinics in the areas.

Fatema, a medical officer at a satellite clinic in Panchaghar, said women are given prescriptions for different reproductive health diseases for as low as Tk 10.

However, the project does not provide laboratory facilities to help diagnose some of the diseases, she said. The cases requiring laboratory tests have to be referred to other places.

Jinnatul Islam, a 17-year-old youth in Kurigram district, said, "I have become more conscious about health after attending the RHIYA resource centre."

Solidarity, a local NGO, has been implementing the RHIYA project with support from the UNFPA and the Save the Children.

Abdus Sattar, peer educator of the project in the district, said so far 300 youths, both male and female, have been covered by the scheme.

Jinnatul,17 and Tariquzzaman, 20, two youths in Kalibakshy area, said they have formed a forum called "Sonali Probhat Sangha" and they organise different cultural programmes to propagate information about safe sex and reproductive health issues.

The UNFPA started the two-year project in September 2003 in 17 districts in the country along with six other Asian countries including Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Combodia and Thailand.