Expanding Education

July 30, 2019

Aayush and Mariam’s Perspective:

Similar to yesterday, we spent the day at the office. The day started off with us finishing up yesterday’s blog articles for RAHU’s website. Erin and Aayush worked on an article about the National Sexuality Education Framework and the presentation given by a member of the Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES) last week. Meanwhile, Mariam wrote an article about the Headteachers Forum in general from last Friday, focusing on the main takeaway message of needing to educate not only children in school, but religious leaders, parents, and children who aren’t in school. After finishing the articles, we edited each other’s and had other members of RAHU give feedback before submitting them for official approval. After lunch, we shadowed some other members of the office and met Juma, a peer educator who happened to stop by. He was very fascinated that his younger sister looked a lot like Mariam! A lot of the staff was either out in the field or working from somewhere else, so the day was kind of slow. After work, we made some stir fry veggies and heated our leftover pizza and biryani from Ponnus, with some mango ice cream for dessert. Naturally, we went to bed pretty early. Mariam just happened to sleep a whole whooping 12 hours! (typical)

Rashmi and Lily’s perspective: 

Good morning everyone! Up and at ‘em again at 7am in preparation for day 2 of the peer educator training. Today is going to be a slightly shorter day which is nice for us as a team and the peer educators; it is hard to be taking in new information for 8 hours straight! 

First thing in the morning, Ibrah asked the peer educators what they had learned yesterday. They briefly touched on menstruation, body changes in men and women, and sexual reproductive health. A few people laughed at someone’s comment about pubic hair, so Ibrah reiterated the fact that people’s reactions and feedback should be positive and constructive, they should not be making fun of something someone said. The peer educators expressed that they felt like yesterday’s sessions were well facilitated, very informative, and exposed them to new things. A few people mentioned that they felt like the day was too long, but Ibrah reassured them that the first day is always the longest by far, and that we would be done over an hour earlier today. 

The first session of the day was addressing Contraceptive Methods and Family planning, and was facilitated by a man named Samuel from Marie Stopes, one of RAHU’s major donors and partners. He opened by discussing the importance of family planning, especially for women, saying, “proper family planning enables women to accomplish more life and career goals because they are not concerned about an unplanned pregnancy, or caring for many young children at once.” From there, the discussion moved to how family planning can have a positive impact on everyone from the child themselves to the government. This was an especially interesting point for us to listen to. He said that for the children, having less siblings who are spaced out by a greater number of years allows the parents to give their children much more attention and support, and allows them to allocate their personal resources more effectively. For the government, family planning is a method of population control. When people have many children born very close together, it eliminates their ability to allocate personal resources well, and it drains the resources that the government has to offer people, potentially resulting in more widespread poverty. Additionally, Samuel discussed and demonstrated the most common methods of contraception such as the oral contraceptive pill, both male and female condoms, the IUD, and permanent methods like vasectomy and tubal ligation. He also opened the floor for the peer educators to ask questions about the methods of contraception, and take time to address the common myths and misconceptions surrounding contraceptive methods. Some of the myths and misconceptions included hormonal contraceptives causing cancer, infertility, menstrual cycle changes, and using contraceptives being a sin. Samuel reassured the peer educators by saying that these methods do not cause cancer or infertility and that most changes in menstrual cycle are not harmful side effects. He also addressed the idea that religion and culture can shape many people’s viewpoints on contraceptive methods, but preventing unplanned pregnancies and STI’s, and ensuring safe sex is a part of taking care of yourself, especially as a young person. 

Following a short tea break, Helen stepped in to discuss Gender Roles and Responsibilities, specifically in the participants’ communities. She began by defining sex and gender and identifying the difference between the two. Gender is based more on identity and gender roles are assigned by society, while sex is a person’s biological makeup (males have a penis, females have a vagina). Gender is also based strongly on people’s perception of what makes a man or woman, like the idea that only women paint their nails and wear makeup. The idea came up of men paying dowry here in Uganda and Helen compared it to the Indian practice of the woman’s family paying dowry to her husband to show the differences in cultural practices and gender role assignments. After the discussion, Helen facilitated a privilege game where the participants were given a card with a “character” on it that has information like age, gender, & occupation. They are given statements like “I can afford 3 meals a day”, or “I can afford to move out of a violent relationship”. They then either take a step forward if their character is able to, or stay in the same place if they are not. The only people to move all 4 steps were a female member of parliament & a male peer educator/youth counselor. She explained that the significance of the activity is, “to understand that our messages should be based on people’s context, on people’s realities; do not put everyone in the same box. Equity is making sure that you step in everyone else’s shoes.” This was followed by another discussion about the difference between gender equality and gender equity. Gender equality is defined as men and women sharing equal responsibility socially, politically, economically. Gender equity is different in that it is not just about giving people the same thing, it is about catering to their innate advantages/disadvantages. 

Ibrah ran the next session on STI’s and HIV/AIDS. The peer educators learned about the difference between STI’s and STD’s, HIV, and about UTI’s as well. He defined STI’s (sexually transmitted infections) as the first few steps of becoming infected with a disease; the person may not even show symptoms yet. STD’s (sexually transmitted diseases) are when the infection reaches a point that disrupts normal body function; the person exhibits symptoms that may be treatable or untreatable. They discussed the potential signs and symptoms of STI’s and if and how they can be treated. Ibrah emphasized the difference between an affected person and an infected person, saying that an infected person has tested positive for that disease while an affected person is negative, but their behavior may have to change to avoid becoming infected. UTI’s (urinary tract infections) were touched on briefly as an infection of any part of your urinary tract and usually exhibit symptoms like constantly feeling like you need to pee, burning or stinging while peeing, discolored urine, etc. We made sure to emphasize the importance of personal hygiene and making sure to urinate after every sexual encounter. Following the discussion, the peer educators participated in an activity where each table was assigned a topic relating to HIV such as: “myths and misconceptions of HIV/AIDS”, “causes of HIV stigma and how we can control it”, etc. They had a few minutes to create a poster on the topic and are currently presenting their posters to the rest of the group. This has opened up a conversation of the importance of educating people on the disease so that people who are positive are not ostracized from their communities, and so that people who are not infected do not have a negative perception of those who do have it. 

To wrap up the day, Ibrah and Helen went through the questions that were in the parking lot today and answered them. The questions included, “Is menstruation the shedding of the walls? Is it the explosion of the egg?” Helen explained that after ovulation, the egg gets fertilized in the fallopian tubes, but if it doesn’t, then the lining that the uterine has built up is shed because the uterus knows it does not have a fetus to house. Someone else asked, “What is sex?” While in the U.S., we try to be open and accepting of everyone’s definition of sex, especially with constantly growing support for the LGBTQIA+ community, in Uganda, they tend to strict to a traditional definition of sexual intercourse in order to avoid confusing people. Sexual intercourse is strictly defined as penetration, especially with straight couples. Other things can be considered sex to some people, but they are usually considered foreplay here (like kissing or clitoral stimulation). 

At the end of the second day, we decided that we wanted to have some down time before dinner, so they laid in bed in their room and watched the newest season of Queer Eye. Around 7:30pm, Victor came by the hotel to pick up an extension cord and offered to take us to dinner, so we agreed. We went to a nearby hotel that had some more diverse food options, so Lily got a veggie burger and Rashmi got vegetable stir fry with rice as we are still trying to eat carefully due to some ongoing stomach discomfort. We had a really nice, conversation-filled dinner with Victor (lots of conspiracy theory talk LOL) and returned to the hotel for some much-needed rest.