Girl Guides call to be taught safer sex as a priority

The Girl Guides have come a long way since the days of my delinquent Brownie youth, when our Tawny Owl (who had a wee bit of a problem with the bottle and a bigger one with good judgement) would send us into the forest to look for burrs while she contentedly sipped gin in the church basement...but I digress.

The Girl Guides of the UK polled a thousand girls and young women (age 7-25) involved with their organization about what they thought girls should know. The result is The Guide to Living for Modern Girls, with some interesting suggestions that point to where the priorities are for girls and young women.

Ages 16-25 want to know about:

• Money management skills (93%)
• Performing resuscitation (85%)
• Speaking confidently in public (84%)
• Practising safe sex (80%)
• Producing a first-rate resume (66%)
• Assembling flat pack furniture (55%)

Ages 10-15 listed these as their priorities:

• Cooking a healthy meal (79%)
• Leading a team (74%)
• Pitching a tent (74%)
• Knowing how to stand up to boys (68%)
• Learning word processing and spreadsheet software(66%)

Ages 7 -10 thought they should be versed in:

• Knowing the Green Cross Code (80%) (I'm not sure, this might be the UK version of the Brownie code)
• Safe web surfing (78%)
• Caring for a pet (75%)

First aid (75%)



Furthermore, in more applause-worthy directions, the Girl Scouts of America established the Girl Scout Research Institute in 2000, as a "center for research and public policy information on the healthy development of girls as they mature toward adulthood."

So much more than cookies! Tom Jones had it right, "women and girl (scouts) rock my world!"

(News source: UK Telegraph, July 26/07)

Sex Ed in the UK

15-year-old Katrina Mather has calculated that the opening hours of her local sexual health clinic in the UK give each young person in the area access for under 15 seconds per month.


A survey by the UK Youth Parliament (UKYP) of over 20,000 young people published today highlights that more than 50% have never been taught about pregnancy in school and wouldn’t know where to find their local sexual health clinic. Effective condom use is also not being taught to more than half of the students in the UK, and most find their sex education to be disappointingly inadequate.Findings from the survey are published in a report entitled “Sex & Relationships Education – Are You Getting It?” being launched today at the House of Commons. Other findings echo those found in other studies across the globe: that we aren't teaching youth about relationships, the things they find meaningful and that most young people find their sex education to be woefully inadequate. When will we start to believe them, when they have been telling us for more than a decade that we are doing it wrong?


source: UKyouthparliament.org

Brazil's Commitment to Sexual Health

(photo by Andy Caulfield)

The Christ over Rio de Janeiro is showing profoundly more compassion for the people of Brazil than Pope Benedict has of late, but thankfully, the government of Brazil is doing a much better job. Brazil joins other progressive mostly Catholic countries in developing a plan to promote sexual health in its citizens : it has handed out more than 250 million free condoms, and just announced that it will provide birth control at 10,000 pharmacies across the country for only $2.40 a year. It already provides a limited number of free vasectomies, and will be increasing the number substantially as well. The Pope has publically spoken out against the move by Brazil and other countries that are following suit.

As Marty Klein over at Sexual Intelligence notes: "Increased access to contraception invariably enhances everyone's health, lowers infant mortality, increases lifespans, and raises incomes. " It's time for the church to recognize the harm it is inflicting on people's lives with its rigid, outdated and dangerous social policy in regards to sexuality and reproduction.

Brazil has 21.2 million people between 12 and 18 years of age, representing 12.5 percent of its 174 million inhabitants, according to A Voz dos Adolescentes (The Voice of Adolescents), a report by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). Clearly specific strategies need to be adapted to address the needs of this population, and this is an important step in creating a sexually healthy population.

Birds and Bees- Launching a Sex Ed Zine!

Here in the province of Quebec in Canada, the government essentially eliminated sex education from the curriculum, effective January 1, 2005. Instead, teachers are supposed to "infuse" it throughout the curriculum. French teachers are being given workshops on how to do so, to date English teachers are not. It's not a mandated thing, it's really up to individual schools to apply as they see fit. As you can imagine, most teachers don't feel comfortable teaching sex ed, so if it isn't a requirement, it isn't going to happen. In Canada, most students already report less than two hours of sex education throughout their entire high school career. This move makes safe spaces for youth to have meaningful learning about sex education even more diminished. Quebec, incidently, has the highest rate of youth having unprotected sex in the country.

One of the activist community groups that is doing something positive and proactive about this in Montreal is Head and Hands, who are introducing The Sense Project into schools this September. The Sense Project is going into several Montreal area schools and will be delivering sex education programs taught by trained community volunteers, and will be training youth to be peer sexualities educators as well. They're doing a fantastic job, and this is really important work.

On July 15th, The Sense Project will be launching The Birds and the Bees - A Sex Ed Zine as a fund raiser and awareness project. All you Montrealers, come out to the Sala Rossa (4848 St-Laurent) to show your support for the healthy growth of sexual health education in this province. Doors open at 8 pm, and ten bucks will get you in AND a copy of the new sex ed zine, with all proceeds going to The Sense Project.

Some of the featured lineups on the evening's roster of entertainment include:


- Performances by People for Audio, Nightwood, City of a Hundred Spires and Anti-School Year

- A panssexual kissing booth

- Circus acts

Come out and show your support for this important cause! See you there :-)

Sounds about right to me...