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Peer Educators Help Montengrin Youth Protect Themselves
According to a poll conducted in a coastal high school in Montenegro, 90% of students believe that sex education is essential in schools. Forty-seven percent of boys and 17% of girls do not know the meaning of "contraception," although 24% have already had their first sexual experience. With the majority of students still relying on media and friends as their main sources of information for reproductive health issues, topics such as contraception, sexually transmitted diseases, the need for regular medical examinations, and other reproductive health questions
remain of great interest to young people who have had no opportunity to ask professionals about them until now.
To help with responsible efforts to fill this gap, the USAID-funded reproductive health segment of the Community Revitalization through Democratic Action (CRDA) program, implemented in southern Montenegro by International Relief and Development (IRD), has organized a series of lectures and workshops on reproductive health issues in schools in the area.
The program includes visits to specialized counseling offices, as well as special trainings organized in cooperation with two regional youth NGOs, CAZAS and JUVENTAS, for future peer educators, who will continue to pass their knowledge onto their school friends. The program covers 13 schools in southern Montenegro, with other schools in the region participating in the training program for peer educators.
"I joined in because I wanted to receive adequate and accurate information about sex education, talk openly about it in an interesting way, and certainly learn a lot," says sixteen-year-old Nina from Danilo Kis High School in Budva, one of 20 participants in the reproductive health workshop organized in her school.
Inspired by these programs, participants have organized themselves independently and, with the support of their teachers and professionals, arranged new, additional, workshops and drama seminars for various schools along the coast. In one such seminar, students from Budva and Bar designed an idea for a short, informative movie, to be produced in cooperation with a local TV station, in which they themselves will talk openly about what is still considered to be a taboo topic. The movie will be distributed to schools, and will be available as an information source for students that have not been directly involved in the workshops.
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| Participants in one of CRDA’s reproductive health workshops |
IRD Women's Reproductive Health Coordinator Dr. Fehmija Fetahovic delivers lecture at Budva High School |
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