Positive Approaches to implementing Comprehensive Sexuality Education with young people

Capacity Building Workshop, 6th to 8th September 2010, New Delhi

Organized by The YP Foundation and The International Planned Parenthood Federation- South Asia Regional Youth Network (IPPF SARYN), supported by The Girls Decide Campaign.

About The Workshop

An approach to addressing sexuality that considers an abstinence-only or non-comprehensive approach to providing information to empower young people to address their health and rights is in an approach that no longer works to address the growing misconceptions on sexuality and health amongst young people, restricting access to youth friendly, confidential and safe health services. Based on this premise; the workshop aims to address the following issues:

- The workshop aims at providing young people with an overview of Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) and Youth Friendly Health Services (YFHS), to empower young people working with initiatives that focus on young people’s health and rights to access the skills, information and tools available.

- Advancing young people’s right to access comprehensive services and information regarding their sexuality, health and rights, particularly addressing that their sexual rights are human rights.

- Realizing and investing in Human Rights as supporting choice, respect diversity, equality and justice that are often compromised on, and not seen as a part of young people’s right to health.

The workshop comprises of interactive sessions that will be conducted by peer educators from the organization as well as external professionals and partner organizations working in the fields of Gender, Sexuality, Health and Rights, with a particular emphasis on work with access to information and services, research and advocacy.

Applications are due by 20th August 2010

Participants - All applicants must be between the ages of 18 and 26 years at the time of submitting their application. All applicants must have prior experience of working with YFHS or CSE for young people, either as full time or part time work or volunteer experience. Please note that this is a mandatory requirement for participation. As per mandate, 17 seats are reserved for women and girls.

Please download the application form and the concept note for more details. Final applications are to be submitted to divya@theypfoundation.org

Download Concept Note (PDF)

Download Application (Doc)

Ishita Chaudhry speaks to the folks at the Population Institution in Washington DC about the need to invest in young people’s sexual reproductive health and rights. Read more about our campaign ‘Know Your Body, Know Your Rights‘.

Let us know what you think?

The language of sexuality that we use at The YP Foundation has evolved over the last few years as our understanding of what the multiple facets of and interconnections within sexuality, gender, rights and health are. It’s been a challenging process and our knowledge of the same has been challenged, redefined, questioned and re-invented. The most important learning principle is that there is little that is static. Our key principles remain the same, but how those are defined and applied is a continuous learning process.

Over the last 2 years our work has been directed towards advocating for young people’s sexual right as a human right. Certain key principles that have been recognized are:

- We believe that sexuality and expression of sexuality is intrinsic to each individual

- Recognize that sexuality is a normal and important part of all people’s lives and while different people have different understandings and ways of expressing their sexuality, all people should experience their bodies and sexuality in a positive and fulfilling manner.

- Every person has the right to access information services relating to sexual rights and health irrespective of any other considerations.

- Recognize that gender is a fluid concept and gender roles are based on narrow societal constructs. Every individual has the right to choose and ascribe to different gender and/or sexual identities.

- Respect, and not violate, other people’s bodies and personal spaces, laying emphasis on the importance of consent in relationships.

- Recognize that different people have different body types and address existing stereotypes relating to body types, sexuality & notions of what is attractive.

- Respect their bodies and take proper care of their bodies with respect to nutrition, exercise, sexual health and get regular health checkups.

- Recognize the importance of accessing correct information from reliable sources, leading to informed decision making.

Along with any sort of work comes a tag, a tendency to define and interpret where certain actions, event or piece of work fits in. For The YP, this process was not a conscious process, but we found a space, where we feel our work very naturally fit.

Language here again became important. What are our politics and our stands?  What language and with what words do we speak?  Who do we speak on behalf of? Do we identify ourselves with any movement?  Specifically in relation to our work with sexuality, how do we ensure that our work and also language is culturally appropriate-or is that even necessary?

Another question was of our engagement with social issues, with registration came the tag of NGO- a ‘not for profit registered foundation’. Words such as social change, social justice, Advocates, Activists entered our vocabulary and concept notes.

The term youth activism has been used to describe our work in multiple arenas, both internally and externally. But what does that mean, specifically in the context of work around sexuality and gender, how is activism interpreted when placed in the milieu of urban issues and people? These are some of the questions that this series of article hopes to explore.

Ishita Sharma
Coordinator
Project 19 – Know Your Body, Know Your Rights

Working at The YP Foundation (TYPF) is like being on a ship! At Project 19 at TYPF, where I work, today is the day where you’re sitting and relaxing, looking around seeing what is missing and what can be improved. Trying to add to the workshop formats, making lists, meeting professionals and writing blogs! You can almost be assured though, that it’s not going to stay like this for long though.

The past few weeks have been crazy. We finished conducting training evaluations with our peer education team by the 1st week of February after training with them for the last 4 months on young people’s sexuality, health and rights, then moved into conducting public workshops.

To backtrack a bit, Project 19 trains young people to become Peer Facilitators and address issues of HIV/AIDS, Sexuality, Health and Rights with their peers through community based forums and workshops. Peer Facilitators train over a 4-6 month period, developing independent research case studies, producing their own short films and literature and conducting awareness campaigns that engage decision makers, civil society and young people, advocating for increasing young people’s access to comprehensive sexuality education as well as youth friendly health services.

The project has reached out to over 1,500 young people across 5 states in India through its workshops and has also expanded nationally, to host The Project 19 Annual Festival that brings together over 600 marginalized and urban youth together in Delhi to lobby and articulate their collective rights to their sexual reproductive rights and health.

From the multiple workshops we have done this year, we experienced a very diverse audience with equally diverse expectations. From the feedback that we got it seems like all the participants were very receptive and we managed to give leave them with some food for thought regarding issues of sexuality, gender, sexual rights, body image and contraceptives in light of how these issues apply to their daily life.

The biggest challenge and aim of our workshops has been to not ‘theoreticise’ these terms or make young people realize that these issues are not just concepts that you can read or study about but facts and realities that you live with everyday.

At a workshop, it doesn’t seem like you’ve done much but there is A LOT of work going on ‘behind the scene’. From booking venues for workshops, coordinating with your team, to sitting up at night and painting cardboard cut outs for the campaign, it’s incredible how much hard work goes into putting those 3 hours together. (Please believe me!)

So yesterday was a STORM, on board The YP Foundation. We did our 5th workshop at Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies better known as CBS. In your average sailing day, for us CBS was definitely uncharted territory!

Our workshop was suppose to start at 12.30pm with our ‘KNOW YOUR BODY, KNOW YOUR RIGHTS’ Campaign at 10.30 a.m. But that didn’t happen as the entire team got lost – we managed to finally reach by 11, after driving through narrow village lanes, crazy traffic jams, and light-bulb moments of ‘how BIG Delhi really is’! We finally started our workshop around 1pm, with 20 people in the conference room. That’s an ideal number of people for a workshop such as this one.

The workshop started on a good note and everyone seemed to be enjoying the session! Over the past 5 workshops we’ve got a good response on the format. The exercises take us through auctioning off people’s rights needs and wants, making participants chart their bodies, induce a deliberate battle-of-the-sexes, explore their acting skills and grill them to break down their thoughts!

And CBS was no different. While some students had to rush back to class in the middle of the session the ones who stayed seemed to have a great time – we had an especially fantastic role-play between two students negotiating condom use!

The next port that we have to reach is two day training workshop on the 19th and 20th of march, the nerves are slowly showing as we wait for applicants, finalize session formats and confirm our partnerships but I have a good feeling about this one .

We are hoping to train around 20 volunteers for 2 days on issues relating to sexuality, gender and rights through innovative games and discussions for people who want to start projects in the coming year in their institutions, so lets hope no one gets sea-sick in the next couple of days.

All in all yesterday was another exciting day at Project 19, and we still have a few seas to cross – a 2 day training – before the ship can finally anchor for the year More on that soon!

Suvidhi Khurana
Administrative Liaision
Project 19

Project 19: Know Your Body, Know Your Rights
Understanding Young Peoples Sexuality, Gender and Rights

A Call for Applications

A 2 Day Training workshop on issues of Sexuality, Gender, Rights and Health

Date: 19th and 20th MARCH
Time: 10 am to 6 pm
Venue: American Centre

A word from the organizers:

The YP Foundation (TYPF is a youth led and run non-profit in India that develops young people’s leadership skills to take action on issues that they are passionate about. Founded in 2002, the organization supports young people between the ages of 13 and 28 to conceptualize and implement community based projects that challenge stereotypes, forge sustainable partnerships and promote the uninhibited expression of young people.

As part of our annual Peer Education programme – Project 19: Know Your Body, Know Your Rights at The YP Foundation, we have been working with youth communities on increasing their access to and understanding of information on gender, sexuality and rights.

The project trained a group of 20 peer educators this past year and conducted over 8 open community workshops with young people across Delhi, who are both in and out of school settings, primarily between the ages of 16 and 23 years. The aim was to provide young people with a safe space where they can understand, clarify and articulate their basic sexual and reproductive rights and health.

As a follow up to the peer education process, we are hosting a 2 day intensive workshop on March 19 and 20, 2010 at The American Centre for young people interested in gaining a deeper, stronger understanding of Gender, Sexuality and Rights. No prior experience is required to apply the workshop, however, an interest in the field would be!

Participants from outside Delhi are welcome, however, we would be unable to cover accommodation and travel costs to and from the training. Food during the days of the training will be covered by The YP Foundation.

Thank you for taking the time and trouble to do this in advance, we really do appreciate the help and support!

In Solidarity,

The YP Foundation

About the workshop

The training workshop aims to bring together 20 young people, between the ages of 18-28 years, who are interested in issues of Human Rights, Gender and Sexuality.

The workshop will provide training on Human Rights, Sexuality, Gender, Health, Advocacy and Project Management, conducted by peer educators from The YP Foundation as well as external professionals from the field.

Each participant will be required to conduct a small awareness-based follow-up of their choice either in their community or institution, as individuals or groups.

You can apply individually or as a team consisting of maximum 5 people. For teams of more than 5 people, please contact either Nitya or Suvidhi, the workshop coordinators.

The last date for entries is 16th of MARCH 2010.

Completed applications can be mailed in to yp.project19@gmail.com

For further details please contact:

Nitya Vaishnavi Singh
Mobile: +91 98187 54292
Suvidhi Khurana
Mobile: +91 98111 27271