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| AcDev's head physician (2nd from the left) together with the three young men who started the whole movement for the young people's right on sexual health |
Young Senegalese men and women hardly have any access to contraceptives and sexual health services. Pre-marriage sexuality is socially taboo, though hiddenly practiced quite commonly. Hence, young people are afraid of asking questions on the matter, and don’t even try to drop in at a health centre. These centres even are very reluctant to give young unmarried people access to such services.
Senegal has actually upped the importance sexual health for young people on its political agenda, but eventually let no actions follow this commitment. So, sexual health is a serious issue for young people in Senegal and its populated capital town. AcDev, our partner organisation in Pikine, a high-density suburb of Dakar, was determined to make up for the State’s failure. The goal was to grant young people an easy access to their health centre and its comprehensive sexual health services. There is no doubt that there is a pressing need among young people for contraceptives and information about sexual health, as our program manager Maja Hürlimann ascertained last March 2019 while on her yearly assessment trip in Senegal.
“Do whatever you want to get your peers in here”
The year before, three young men in their teenage years showed up at AcDev’s health centre and asked the head physician if they could hold a blood donation event in the site. She agreed, and eventually she got impressed by the dynamism of these three kids how they organised and held the event. Hence, she grabbed the chance and asked them if they were willing to set up something to attract young people to the centre. Once you make young people cross that door and get inside, she reckoned, they would possibly avail themselves of the offered sexual health services, with no sense of shame or fear of hiding.
“Do whatever you want to get your peers in here”, was her only specification. The kids set up a small internet café, offering some software courses. And it thoroughly worked out.
With the excuse of going to the internet café, their peers, once inside, eagerly used the services, got access to contraceptives and whatever they needed. And their parents would not need to know or ask.
And then it became a wide-spread youth movement
“I found it very intriguing how AcDev approached the challenge”, Maja Hürlimann stated. “The head physician let them exploit all their own motivation and creativity. She knew they know best about their peers’ interests.”
The initial group of three soon grew to become a committee with many members. They called it the “Mouvement des Jeunes de la banlieue pour le développement” – the “young suburbans’ movement for development” – even coming up with their own Facebook site. They are now operating and campaigning in several surrounding quarters; on their initiative, AcDev set up two new counselling centres there.
Maja Hürlimann initiated an exchange and networking process between the groups of young people of AcDev and Intermondes, an other partner organisation of IAMANEH operating in the neighbouring quarter of Guédiawaye. Intermondes runs a project for prevention and sexual education since several years. Already early on, they worked out a way to reach out to young people and to encourage their parents to open themselves to their children about sexual education issues.
With the exchange between AcDev’s and Intermondes’ young people, they jointly created a new “youth movement” group. They now are working on holding a conference with the claim: “We young people have a right on sexual health”. The conference will take place this year on August 12, the International Youth Day. There will be podium discussions, theatre performances, music and sports, with which the organisers want to attract a wide variety of people – not only kids of the neighbourhood, but also their families, along with some local authorities, maybe government representatives, and certainly the media. All of this in the name of young people’s right on sexual health.
