Launching of both the Standard National ASRH Manual for service providers and the National ASRH Coordination Forum

We as Africaid attended the National Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health (ASRH) Conference held at the Rainbow Towers, in Harare.
The objectives of the conference included:
-The distribution of the National ASRH Strategy: 2010 – 2015, as a follow up to the launch.
-Launching the Standard National ASRH Training Manual for service providers to ensure its visibility.
-Launching the National ASRH Coordination Forum so as to guarantee its visibility and decentralization.
-Advocating for strengthened commitment towards the integration of SRH and HIV programming for young people as well as strengthening the role of adolescents, parents/guardians, communities, religious sector and civil society in ASRH.
From the various presentations displayed, it revealed that there is lack of knowledge amongst us as young people in terms of unwanted pregnancies, circumcision, STIs and HIV and more so for our rural counterparts.
The adults present acknowledged that adolescents and young people were engaging in sexual activities instead of running away from such issues. They claimed that there should be services put in place to carter to their SRH needs. To ensure a constructive atmosphere for our young people there should be “youth- friendly corners” were young people can go to, be it for information on sexual reproductive health or talking to someone, without facing criticism from the service providers. Places where we as young people can relate to and be free to talk about anything and everything.
The issue that some people think circumcision provides 100% protection against HIV, which then makes them have more than one sexual partner, was raised, too. 100% protection is not the case, circumcision just reduces the risk of getting infected if you limit to one uninfected partner, which is different from being immune to the virus.
The conference was a success mainly because young people were involved in such a landmark strategy. As Mr Yemurai Nyoni (National Young People’s Network on SRH – HIV) noted, if anything is targeted to help young people and adolescents, it has got to involve them as “Anything for us without us, is against us”
So listen to us, for decisions made today will affect us in the not so distant future!