Are you ready for the future of Comprehensive Sexuality Education?

Date: 07/09/2021

Theme

Three essential ways to scale-up Comprehensive Sexuality Education

Join this roundtable on how scaling-up Comprehensive Sexuality Education builds a stronger and future proof IPPF strategy and network.

Host

IPPF Centers of Excellence on Comprehensive Sexuality Education: Rutgers, Profamilia, ATBEF, PPAG

In collaboration with UNESCO, WHO, UNFPA, Rutgers WPF Indonesia and PPAZ Zambia

Centers of Excellence are funded by Global Affairs Canada and IPPF

Summary

Comprehensive Sexuality Education works. However, some countries face strong opposition towards sexuality education. Or it is seen as extracurricular in the school programme. This results in only small numbers of young people reaping its benefits.

This roundtable will discuss three tried and tested strategies on how scaling up CSE by member associations will allow more young people to receive CSE and take responsibility for their own and other people’s sexual health and wellbeing.

Strategy 1: How to convince your government to invest in CSE

Strategy 2: How to leave no one behind when going digital

Strategy 3: How to deal with opposition on CSE in your society

Registration

Register in advance for this webinar:

https://weareinnovision.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_dzGA-VCUQyCzzSNQfYArFg

Date Tuesday 7 September

Time 15:00-17:00 CEST

Languages Interpretation will be available in Arabic French, English and Spanish

Introduction by

Yueping Guo, Member of IPPF Board Committee for Strategy, Investment and Policy. Former Core Member of China Youth Network, the largest youth-led volunteer organization in adolescent sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in China. Supported by China Family Planning Association, she and her team have supported young people in more than 500 universities to carry out peer education, outreach activities, social campaigns on SRHR. She is 23 years old now and she is pursuing her master degree in Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Moderators

Abena Adubea Amoah is a Ghanaian and currently the Executive Director of the PIanned Parenthood Association of Ghana (PPAG) based in Accra. She has expertise in developing and implementing strategic and innovative programs in, Health, Education, Gender, Economic development and skills training, and international volunteer programs. Abena has practical experience working at different levels in community development, health promotion, education, gender and youth development, employment and training sectors and over 15 years of direct management.

Abena has passion for youth and gender issues and has been part of the fight against all forms of abuse and discriminations against women and youth. She is also involved in mentoring of young people.

Ton Coenen is the Executive Director of Rutgers, an NGO for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in the Netherlands, internationally and operating in 20 countries. Ton holds Master degrees in Public Health and Public Management. Before Rutgers he was the executive director of Aids Fonds and STI/AIDS Netherlands for 12 years and worked in public health before that.  He has been involved in strengthening civil society in many ways –as the co-chair to the EU civil society Forum on HIV/AIDS, as co-chair to HIV in Europe, Board member to Icaso, as Board member to the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria. He was the Chair for Inspire, the European NGO network on SRHR for three years and was a member of the ICPD+25/Nairobi Summit Steering Committee.  He is vice-chair of the Supervisory Board to the Dutch Council for Refugees. He is a She Decides Champion.

Noelie Koeivi-Koudam is the Executive Director of the Togolese Association for Family Welfare (ATBEF) since October 2019. She has more than fifteen years of experience in the field of social marketing, coordination of structures, and a proven knowledge of RH/FP/HIV/AIDS, experiences acquired through her 12 years of work within Population Services International (PSI) Togo. Noélie has a degree in Marketing and Communication Management and has over 18 years of experience in the associative world.

Marta Royo is Executive Director of Profamilia, Colombia’s longest-standing, non-governmental organisation that provides, protects, and advocates for sexual and reproductive rights and services.

This responsibility has given her the opportunity to help achieve significant political and social transformation aimed towards improving the status of girls and women in Colombia, including, but not limited to: leading legislature on the National Policy on Sexuality and Sexual and Reproductive Rights; making sure these rights are recognised for people with disabilities; eliminating the barriers that prevent women from accessing safe abortions. In this position, she has managed to implement a successful social enterprise model, while working towards making Profamilia a sustainable organization and expanding the social impact of its programs and initiatives.

Roundtable Members

Hayathe Ayeva is a 21 year old pharmacy student at the National School of Medical Auxiliaries in Lomé.

A very committed social activist, Hayathe is a leader at heart, a fighter for the sexual and reproductive health of adolescents and young people; she currently chairs the Youth Action Movement (YAM) of the Togolese Association for Family Welfare (ATBEF), a full member of the International Planned Parenthood Federation.

As part of her YAM activities, she works hard with her peers to support ATBEF’s awareness raising activities on sexual and reproductive health and rights. Hayathe aspires to one day work in the United Nations to put her skills in Sexual and Reproductive Health at the service of young people for an equal world.

Meatchi Bakar is CSE school and health focal point at the Ministry of Education – Togo. He holds a doctorate in Social Sciences from the University of Lomé. Passionate about the field of public health, he is involved in youth and adolescent health issues, particularly sexual and reproductive health of adolescents and youth.

Having participated in several national and international meetings on youth health and development, Bakar is committed to working both in his department and with civil society organisations on issues related to the sexual and reproductive health rights of youth and adolescents in Togo.

Johanna Blanco Barreto has more than 12 years experience in the education and health sectors, specifically in the promotion and guarantee of sexual and reproductive rights. Currently, she coordinates the global project in Colombia for Comprehensive Sexuality Education outside of school and leads actions for comprehensive sexuality education, inside and outside of school, at the national and local levels, in the Population Fund of the United Nations-UNFPA.

Dr. Venkatraman Chandra-Mouli works on Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health (ASRH) in the World Health Organization’s Department of Reproductive Health and Research (which includes the UNDP/UNFPA/UNICEF/WHO/World Bank Human Reproductive Programme). His work includes building the evidence base on ASRH, and supporting countries to translate this evidence into action through well-conceived and well-managed policies and programmes. His experience in generating knowledge and taking knowledge to action is global in scope and spans over 25 years. Dr Chandra-Mouli joined WHO in early-1993 and worked on HIV/AIDS prevention till mid-1996. Since then, his work has focussed on adolescent health. Before joining WHO, he worked in Zambia, India and Zimbabwe for 12 years – providing primary care services (with a private Zambian company), preventing childhood malnutrition (with a Zambian NGO), preventing HIV and responding to people with HIV (with another Zambian NGO), setting up a regional training and mentoring initiative (with the Canadian Public Health Association); and funding HIV/AIDS related work (with the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation).

René Miranda is a young CSE activist and medical student from El Salvador. Since 2014 René has been working with ADS/PRO-FAMILIA El Salvador, developing CSE courses with adolescents. In 2015, he became part of the United Young Leaders Group for Sex Education (GLUES, in Spanish), a training space that provides ADS to young people to learn about CSE from a gender and rights perspective. In addition, he is part of the Board of Directors of the ADS as the youth representative.

Lester Lozani Phiri is the Communications and Advocacy Officer for the Planned Parenthood Association of Zambia. He has dedicated the last Twelve (12) years to managing adolescent reproductive health programmes, specializing in advocacy and communication, resource mobilisation, Government and civil society networking, programme development, motivational interaction and mentorship. Lester brings on board his wide experience in programme areas of advocacy for policy change, comprehensive sexuality education, service delivery systems strengthening, adolescent sexual reproductive health and rights, and social accountability. He also has direct working experience with policy makers and implementers, knowledge of and exposure to the IPPF, UN systems and other development-oriented organizations. Lester holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Public Health Policy, and is a master trainer in Comprehensive Sexuality Education.

Amala Rahmah is a mother of three girls and is taking Doctoral Program in Research and Evaluation of Education in Jakarta, Indonesia. Her dissertation theme is about ‘Inclusive Education for Children With Disabilities’. Amala works at Rutgers Indonesia as Country Representative and is responsible for 5 projects: Right Here Right Now II (National advocacy on SRHR and young people movement), Power to Youth (child marriage and teenage pregnancy prevention), Generation Gender (Male involvement for elimination violence against women), and Explore for Action (Longitudinal Research – advocacy program). Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) is one of the program approaches that has been implemented since 2010. After 10 years of CSE implementation, Rutgers Indonesia is known as the center of innovation of CSE across Indonesia.

Irene Amponsah Siaw is Acting Executive Secretary of Ghana SRHR Alliance for Young People

With a background in Public Health, Irene has over the past five years, worked in the field of adolescent SRHR with PPAG and the Ghana SRHR Alliance for Young People, where she has worked to increase the effective participation of young people within these organisations. In these five years, Irene has been a part of the process of the development of the initial KnowItOwnItLiveIt CSE Manual developed by PPAG and partners and the development of the initial guidelines set for the rollout of CSE in Ghana. She joins us today to share her experiences on the backlash from the Public that came as a result of this process.

Arushi Singh works in UNESCO’s Section of Health and Education on comprehensive sexuality education: examining best practice on building support for CSE, fostering a global community of practice on CSE, and advancing the research agenda on CSE. Previously, she worked as a consultant, providing technical assistance, strategic direction, and qualitative, participatory evaluation on adolescent and youth sexuality, gender and rights, leadership building, and advocacy to several international NGOs and UN agencies across the Asia-Pacific region and Eastern and Southern Africa. She has also worked for the International Planned Parenthood Federation’s South Asia Regional Office, Amnesty International’s India Office and the Commonwealth Youth Programme’s Asia Centre.