Plaisance secondary shines a spotlight of safe sex and abstinence |03 October 2020

Plaisance secondary students learning about safe sex and abstinence through the exhibition (Photos: Anel Robert)

Students from Plaisance secondary school were able to learn more about safe sex and abstinence through an exhibition held at the school on Thursday.

The activity was conducted by diploma students studying midwifery at the National Institute of Health & Social Studies (NIHSS).

“Our students have developed an evidence based safe sex programme for young people and they chose Plaisance secondary school as the target population to demonstrate their health promotion campaign. Our aim is to give our students the chance to show what they have learned in health promotion as they will use it in their profession as midwives,” said Deborah Quatre, midwifery lecturer at NIHSS.

The health promotion will focus mainly on what is teenage pregnancy as well as how to prevent it.

Daniella Athanase, one of the NIHSS students, noted that teenage pregnancy is becoming more and more prominent in public schools.

She added that in order to mitigate this problem teenagers need to abstain from sex as contraception is not always fool proof.

“The negative impact of teenage pregnancy doesn’t only affect the lives of the two teenagers but the government as well as most rely on welfare which puts further pressure on the economy,” she said.

She added that hopefully by the end of the session the students will understand the importance of abstinence.

On her part Veronica Laira, the PSE teacher at Plaisance secondary, noted that they place emphasis on the prevention of teenage pregnancy in their syllabus.

“When I was approached by the students of NIHSS I welcomed the initiative because teenage pregnancy is one of the topics we are covering in the S2 programme,” said Ms Laira.

She continued by adding that the health promotion on safer sex will benefit all students especially those who are sexually active and not using protection.

“In our development plan one of our targets is to reduce teenage pregnancy and this is why sessions like these are important and hopefully it yields positive results,” she said.

Christophe Zialor