Sano Meru
November 5
DIMAPUR (MExN): A two-day workshop on reproductive health and HIV/AIDS got underway today at Delhi Public School (DPS), Dimapur. The programme is being sponsored and organized by the school under the theme “Life Skill and HIV/AIDS Awareness Camp”. Two resource persons have come all the way from Mumbai Modi Care Enterprise, an NGO specializing on disseminating education on HIV/AIDS in schools and colleges.
The workshop which started today will continue through Sunday. Altogether eight DPS run schools from the eastern region are taking part. This includes DPS run schools in Megacity, Guwahati, Siliguri, Numaligarh, Dahligoan, Nazira, Ruby Park and Duliajan besides Dimapur (the host school). Altogether there are 18 teachers and 18 students here to participate in the workshop.
The topics being addressed in the seminar relates to awareness on life skills. Other issues discussed included the understanding of problems related to the adolescence period and the everyday issues of physical, social, emotional and cognitive well being.
Besides these, the workshop is also stressing on the importance of hormonal changes of adolescents and understanding adolescents as a developmental stage. Various myths and misconceptions of HIV/AIDS are also being discussed at the workshop.
Talking to The Morung Express, Richa Lal, Managing Director Mumbai, ModiCare Foundation, informed that the teachers are being taught mostly on the subject dealing with peer education and also on the reproductive sexual health needs of the adolescents and subjects related to HIV/AIDS.
“We are training them keeping these three objectives in mind: to help them understand the developmental stage of adolescents, understand the reproductive sexual health needs of children and giving information to both. We are helping them understand that children are also humans, they have feelings, they have urge, but at the same time the right attitude should be maintained. We are aiming at attitude skill building to help them deal with the children in the right way” she informed.
Today’s workshop included a series of group interactions and discussions among the teachers and students on the related subject where common misconceptions and doubts were clarified. Apart from these, audio- visual aids were used to impart in-depth knowledge of HIV/AIDS.
