Reproductive Health & Growing into Adulthood

 17 Young girls on Saturday June 22 2024 attended a self awareness/reproductive health workshop at the Involve Learning centre in Hunslet-Leeds in the first of a series of events in our Lottery Funded Project

Talking about sexual health, teenage pregnancy and reproductive health can be very sensitive and tricky which is why the main facilitator of the workshop Ciara Whiteley began by saying it would be good there are giggling interruptions and unnecessary remarks but of course, teenagers will also be teenagers. There was some embarrassing giggling during the presentation

The girls ranging in ages from 13-17 learnt about reproductive health, how their body parts functioned, how babies are made and some common Sexually transmissible and non sexual transmissible disease they would be exposed to when they get sexually active.

Through slides presentations, participants learnt about about how to contract STI’s including like chlamydia, syphilis, gonorrhoea, herpes, and non sexually transmissible infections like candidiasis (yeast infection) and bacterial vaginosis.

Issues Young Girls face as they grow into adulthood

Ms Whiteley also explained to participants some of the challenges they will face as they progress into adulthood and why they need to manage them well as they become responsible adults. She said the most noticeable changes will  be in their bodies as their breast and hips grow as they prepare to become mothers. She said they will also start noticing and interacting with boys, being self conscious, start learning to be financially responsible and will eventually leave home and start paying rents and other bills.

The session was quite animating as the young participants asked challenging questions for the facilitator most questioned centred around sexual development and reproduction and the difficulties they will face as young adults.

More Sessions Planned

Big Hope 4 All Project Manager Mirabelle Azah said her organisation decided on organising these series of self awareness workshops because they were aware these are topics some parents hardly ever mentioned to their teenage daughters or they did not give them the relevant information. As the mother of three young girls, Mirabelle certainly has some parental experience in this domain.

She said many more teenage girls will be attending the workshops that will also include cooking lessons so they can a new life skill.

The workshops are funded with a grant from The national Lottery Community Fund