Paul Barber
Tackling Reproductive Health Issues in North India
Fundraising for iPartner India
Story
Hi,
As most of you will know, I have spent the last year volunteering in India, working on one of the toughest possible projects in this country - tackling sexual and reproductive health and rights issues. There are many serious problems, such as disease, unsafe abortion, and sexual abuse and violence, that India is struggling to deal with because of the tremendous stigma around 'sex'. This part of life, particularly in rural Uttar Pradesh where I am working, remains a hidden, confusing and potentially very dangerous terrain.
Indian schools are still failng to teach any kind of sexuality education to their students. My work has been to design and introduce programmes that can provide accurate and appropriate information to young peple so that they can better manage the sexual and reproductive aspects of their lives, including the many challenges.
Challenges include poor coverage of testing for HIV and other STDs/STIs (there are no facilities where I am currently working). In rural Uttar Pradesh, contraception and family planning are both highly stigmatised and rarely used. It is common knowledge that men are regularly having extra-marital relations, including with sex workers.
However, people and young people in particular are not provided with the information they need to prepare them and prevent future reproductive and sexual health problems. I have been working with the NGO Pardada Pardadi Educational Society (http://www.education4change.org/) to introduce sensitive and context-appropriate reproductive and sexual health training programmes at two schools for girls in Uttar Pradesh. Girls are more vulnerable to infection from HIV and other STDs, are more often the victims of sexual abuse, and are the ones who have to directly face the problems of unwanted pregnancy and the dangers of illegal and unsafe abortions.
However, as a man it is not appropriate for me to teach these topics to the girls myself. Therefore my goal is to build the capacity of female teachers in these two schools to introduce these subjects to the students on a longer-term, more consistent and integrated basis. As the teachers have had little or no education in reproductive and sexual health themselves, we have to start by training them.
I have begun the process, but my volunteering is time limited and the teachers need more intensive training from local, Hindi-speaking staff who have more experience tackling these issues in this context. I have made links with a Delhi-based NGO specialising in reproductive and sexual health, TARSHI (http://www.tarshi.net/). The aim is for TARSHI to provide in-depth training, resources and follow-up support for 20 teachers, for £1500 (INR 141510). This will have a huge impact across two extremely poor and neglected communities in India, helping to begin the absolutely essential process of tackling the many reproductive and sexual health and rights issues India faces today.
Please donate generously to this cause (£10, £20, £25 or more if you can), the need to tackle these problems, for women and girls and for the whole society, is pressing and urgent and the government is doing little to help. The regular reports of brutal rapes that have been surfacing regularly from India are just one example. Helping to prevent a serious HIV epidemic, with all the possible causal factors already in place in this location, is another.
IPARTNER INDIA IS RAISING FUNDS ON BEHALF OF MY PROJECT FOR PARDADA PARDADI. ALL FUNDS WILL GO TO SUPPORT MY PROJECT AND CHANGE THE LIVES OF SOME OF THE POOREST GIRLS IN NORTH INDIA.