adminThe general feeling was that students were more vulnerable to the disease which is more prevalent among youths.
It was the organisation’s seventh conference aimed at addressing sexual reproductive health rights challenges in tertiary institutions and drew participation from close to 100 students from different institutions of higher learning countrywide and different stakeholders.
The three-day conference in December sought to jointly prioritise and respond to the key sexual reproductive health rights concerns of students, who appear forgotten in most national health programming.
The tertiary students must be included in the fight against the disease if the country is to meet its development goals.
“Zimbabwe remains one shining example of a nation producing positive results in the response to HIV and Aids. Saywhat believes that this success story cannot be sustained if the student community is excluded in the nation’s various responses to HIV and Aids. The Government should strengthen means of fighting the disease with the incorporation of students.
“A very significant percentage of the youth’s population is in tertiary institutions and with tuition fees for colleges and universities in Zimbabwe way beyond the reach of many ordinary Zimbabweans, students are exposed to many sexual and reproductive health rights challenges including HIV and Aids,” said Mr Darlington Muyambwa, the programme manager for Saywhat.
It is a sad thing to note that stigma and discrimination of people living with HIV and Aids remain high in institutions of higher learning.
Students subject themselves to multiple concurrent partnerships or extra marital affairs hence the need for serious interventions.
The Saywhat conference also gave stakeholders an opportunity to review strides made so far in the plans to introduce life skills training in schools to equip pupils in primary and secondary schools with information pertaining to HIV and Aids education.
The National Life Skills Strategy should be led by the Ministry of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture to govern life skills education on HIV and Aids and focus on pupils aged between seven and 18 years.
The concerns by Saywhat should be considered, as they would assist in tackling HIV and Aids at grassroots.
Participants at the conference felt there was a need for crafting of new laws that criminalise sexual harassment, as the existing laws don’t protect students who were being abused by lecturers.
The conference left me pondering whether the country and other stakeholders were doing enough to empower its people in all spheres of the social economy.
The biggest challenge faced by students is peer pressure as they are driven into illicit behaviour by their friends and colleagues, which sometimes result in risky sexual behaviour.
According to the National Aids Council, the HIV prevalence rate is high among 15-24-year-olds, which constitutes the bulk of higher learning and tertiary students.
It should also be noted that students have a low risk perception, which needs to be addressed. Students should also be encouraged to go for testing and disclose their status and to partake in male circumcision.
Saywhat is a civil society organisation formed in December 2003 after it was realised that there was an absence of a platform for students to discuss their reproductive health issues.
It envisions “a gender-just nation with empowered, healthy and responsible students who enjoy their full reproductive health rights in tertiary institutions.”
Despite the organisation’s success in the past six years, there has been a challenge in establishing key support and buy-in from partners, stakeholders and college authorities over the issues that would have been discussed and agreed upon by the students.
Saywhat has Ixhiba/Young Men’s Talk/Mugota, an empowering platform that seeks to harness the energies and experiences of young male students in the pursuit of a gender-just nation.
The platform values the equal participation of young men and women in sustainable development that seeks to protect, promote and fulfill the rights of all human beings regardless of sex, ability and gender.
The Young Men’s Talk acknowledges that the meaningful contribution of male students to a gender-just nation can only be laid on a solid foundation of realising the amount of vulnerability and risk associated with traditional and socially constructed roles of men which are not only harmful to their female counterparts, but also to self and the community at large.
The talk creates the platform for young men to meaningfully contribute to the discourse that sets priorities at both policy and programming level on gender equity and equality.
It is such platforms that must be used to ensure that there are conversations that transcend student interaction to cover issues key to sexual reproductive health rights concerns of students.
There should be platforms to promote conversations that will proffer sustainable change in the sexual reproductive health rights terrain in tertiary institutions to identify common concerns and craft effective responses.
Also, there should be space for female students and male students to interrogate the sexual reproductive health rights issue in institutions as a way of making positive contributions to the sexual reproductive health rights responses.
Intervention can be through compulsory HIV and Aids courses in the curriculum, provision of condoms in public places such as toilets and clinics in their institutions as is done in workplaces. Institutions should also establish youth-friendly health services that facilitate young people access to health services.
Furthermore, there should be implementation of a more coordinated and multi-disciplinary approach in addressing HIV and Aids issues to ensure that young people receive a comprehensive package that includes prevention, curative and after care measures.
Online Reporter