Youth Incentives in Nigeria, 11 - 15 May 2006
Youth Alive in Nigeria contacted Youth Incentives through this website and filled in the website contact form to seek collaboration. Within Youth Incentives’ second programme, objective two, to increase awareness of sexual and reproductive health and rights of young people, short term consultancies to conduct training with youth organisations in developing countries are described. Based on the information given by Youth Alive and the consistency of E mail contact a five-days orientation consultancy was planned in order to assess the organisation and to discuss future collaboration. In this context Youth Alive organised several activities; a seminar for 200 high school students on ‘The ill sexual behaviour of the youth in Nigeria’; a two- days training on RAP for the volunteers of Youth Alive, a visit to the local health clinic and a radio broadcasting of a half hour on sexual and reproductive rights.
The two day training was very useful for all the participants and very new, although some of them were medical students or working in the SRH field for a while. Talking openly about sexuality to young people in a positive way was something new and challenging.
Even thinking of sexuality in a broader context with all its social, physical and other aspect, brought new things for most of the participants. How economic power and gender can influence a relationship were things that they had never thought of. The main challenge will be how to implement the things learned into daily practise. The environment they live in still has a lot of negative ideas concerning sexuality. Like masturbation and premarital sex. The limitations, rules and regulations from society make it very difficult to make changes in a positive way. The positive side is that there are more and more young people interested and they can all start within their own environment. In Ilorin there is one centre known as a Youth Friendly service, but for nobody it is clear if it is functioning or not. It is commonly known or believed that that is a centre where people have easy access to abortion. Based on these stories a discussion about Youth Friendly services took place.
Most participants viewed that it is important to start with themselves, to obtain more personal communication skills, or trying to be more accessible for young people, or go out and reach them within their own surrounding.
