Asian Governments Focus on Young People’s Health

Collaborating with UN partners for HIV prevention and sexuality education

A number of UNESCO partnerships and collaborative projects underway in the Asia-Pacific region are focused on strengthening national government capacity and providing inter-agency leadership.

The Cambodian Ministry of Women’s Affairs, in partnership with UNICEF, UNFPA, and UNESCO, will lead a training of trainers workshop for Creating Connections, a UNICEF/UNFPA-initiated programme now being expanded in partnership with UNESCO. Creating Connections aims to assist adolescent girls and parents to become more confident and comfortable to talk about gender, relationships and sex. While the main focus of the meeting will be on Training of Trainers around the Connections Materials for adolescent girls’ and mothers’ groups, the training will be set within a broader framework of sexuality and HIV prevention programmes and innovative methodologies for prevention education for all adolescents. Details are available here on the UNESCO Bangkok website.

In Fiji, the UNESCO office in Samoa and UNFPA are going to host back-to-back workshops on sexual and reproductive health education for key education policy-makers and curriculum developers in Pacific countries. Details are available here on the UNESCO Bangkok website.

With the support of UNESCO, a series of assessments aiming to provide an overview of national education sector programmes on HIV, drugs and sexuality have been conducted in several countries in the region. A review workshop will be held in Malaysia on 12-13 April 2011, convened by the Jakarta cluster office and partners, to identify efforts made in the education sector in response to HIV and AIDS, key challenges being faced, and opportunities for further planning and refinement of programmes for young people. Details are available here on the UNESCO Bangkok website.

For more information about other ongoing initiatives and forthcoming events in the Asia and Pacific region, please visit UNESCO’s Regional Bureau for Education website here.

• Source:UNESCO
• 15-03-2011