They say in the old days there was a way to talk about this sex business with young people. But I don't remember anyone showing me. Because of this, so I never knew how to talk about things that were kind of embarrassing.   As a profession, I had to learn.

It’s been over two years now since I’ve been a peer educator.  I trained as an ‘HIV/AIDS at work place Peer Educator’ from where I gained quite a lot of skills on how to address issues on stigma and discrimination and how to assist colleagues fight for their rights when it comes to such sensitive issues.  I no longer offer my services at workplace since I changed jobs from working with an Agricultural based NGO to one dealing with HIV/AIDS.   But I have been mobilizing young teenagers on Sundays after church occasionally and I do try to educate them on various life issues and how to cope as teenagers with HIV/AIDS.

The other day when I received a call for application for a youth sexuality institute via YWLI list-serve,  I remember brushing through the mail and when I realized I didn’t qualify, all I did was to forward it to some of my friends whom I thought would be interested.  But the following day, I really had to come back and go through the site and mail word by word in an attempt to look for more information on youth and sexuality.

The change of mind was because of an incident which occurred to me on my way home after work.  As we (I and my colleagues) were leaving the hospital gate – Bondo District Hospital, from a distance, I spotted a police rushing to the hospital quarters with a youth probably in his early 20s.  I alerted my colleagues and immediately we started talking about them.  A few metres ahead of them, was this woman with a small girl of about 10 to 14 years old straining to catch-up with the woman’s pace.  When she overheard us, the woman immediately blurted out that the guy had just raped this innocent, somebody’s beautiful baby girl!  Oh God!  I remained motionless for some time even as my colleagues went on ahead.  As the young girl approached, I was trying to think first but I realized I couldn’t either.  The worst happened when our eyes met then she stopped and burst into tears.  I managed to fight back my own tears and really wanted to just even hug her but I couldn’t.  All I could hear her saying amidst crying in mother tongue was, “It’s all gone!  I always dreamt to be a big beautiful girl working like you”.  The next thing I heard was the police shouting at me to get out of the way for the young girl to pass.  I felt like if I had a gun I would have shot that rapist immediately!  Still, I wanted to grab him and ask him why, buy the policeman noticed my moves and beckoned him to pass on the other side of the road.

When I woke up the following day in the morning I had made a decision-to start small but act immediately.  Besides the peer education that I give the youths on Sundays after church, I must find a way to pass a message to such young innocent girls on how they can protect themselves against such.  Many adults find it hard to talk about sexuality with young people, especially our own children. We are embarrassed, shy, not sure of the facts, not sure how we feel about masturbation, teen sex, and gay, lesbian and bisexual people and the worst being how to protect themselves from sexual abuse.

I have quite some experience when it comes to Youths and HIV/AIDS but I have not really done much on youth and sexuality.  Having made my decision, besides what I do best, I will try from now onwards to concentrate on teaching young girls how to deal with the pain of negative experiences and to prepare them to like their bodies, protect it and make good decisions about sexuality, and to live as sexually healthy a life as possible.