Reckless sexual culture of the adolescent youth has been identified as factors that put them inevitably at risk of contracting deadly sexually transmitted infections like HIV, HPV (severe cancers), and Reproductive Health problems.
This was revealed by the Executive Director of HEALTHBASE International, Nathan Perry Mensah when the organization launched its 2019 Action Campaign Project in Accra.
According to Nathan Perry Mensah during their interactions with over 150,000 students within the age bracket of 13 to 17 years, it became evident that 75% are sexually active whilst 70% rejected the use of condom. “They simply don’t like it,” he said.
He mentioned also that 40% admitted to having multiple sex partners and 51% admitted to serial monogamy.
“25% claimed they were forcibly penetrated or raped, 25% were not ready to share private issues and 6p% said parents aren’t aware of their sex experience,” he noted.
According to Nathan Perry Mensah most of the students the organization encountered cited several reasons including poverty, peer pressure, bad role models, excessive alcoholism, smoking, adventure, deception, family influence and broken home as reasons for indulging in early sex.
He pointed out that most of the girls were sexually active at 13 years in urban schools as against 11 years in rural based schools.
He averred that the problem of early sex exposure and its unwarranted effects can be mitigated if sex education is deepened, and parents build closer bonds with their wards instilling in them discipline and training.
HEALTHBASE International
HEALTHBASE International was established in November 2012 by a group of Health professionals with the mission of promoting total health through health status consciousness.
The organization’s goal is to contribute to the wellbeing of every Ghanaian by helping people to know, confirm, accept and deal with their health status, help individuals to effectively manage their health conditions and help reduce premature deaths.
The organization also has the objective of helping improve the standard of living as preventive health care is cheaper than curative health care and provide an avenue for Increased Access to healthcare for the poor.
HEALTHBASE International is a member of the National Coalition of NGOs in Health in the Greater Accra Region in Ghana.
According to the Executive Director, even though they operate on a broad spectrum path to play Advocacy roles on all health issues, they have decided to major their activities under the Sexual and Reproductive Health sector.
He said the organization has been vocal in campaigning against the spread of Sexually Transmitted Infections/Diseases through many schools, communities, churches and mosques.
As part of their activities, the Foundation were in school like the Accra Academy, Presec Boys Senior High School (Legon), Adisadel College, St Augustine’s College (Cape Coast), and Winneba Senior High School.
The Foundation also worked in Vocational and tertiary institutions including Government Secretariat School, Sackey Addoo Secretariat Institute and the Social Advance Institute.
He said: “The reason for the work against Sexually Transmitted Infections or Diseases is that it harbours many topically dangerous diseases like HIV, Human Papiloma Virus (HPV), Hepatitis, Chlamydia and Syphilis.”
Touching on the 2019 Action Campaign Project, Nathan Perry Mensah said the project has been primed on three thematic areas including Health Data (mobile medical screening) on 10,000 to 20 000 people in deprived communities on blood pressure and glucose levels, communities where there is low standard of living, high occupancy rate and densely populated areas with lack of basic social amenities and high illiteracy rate.
He also mentioned that the Foundation will embark on health education campaign through the Greater Accra, Eastern and Western Regions. This he said, will benefit the general public since the presentations that will be delivered will be on most of the powerful social media outlets.
He added that Stress management presentations will also be given through corporate institutions with trained human resource experts.
“It must be noted that stress is a silent killer therefore exposition on the subject will calm a lot of nerves to mitigate the efforts,” he said.
By: PROSPER AGBENYEGA