My day job is as project manager for a sporting programme supported by UNICEF. We place coaches in schools earmarked by Dept of Education as bad in all manner of social evils: drug and alcohol abuse, violence (ja, stabbings and all, at school!), gangsterism, high absenteeism, failure rates, HIV affected, child-headed households and teenage pregnancy. Sport is used as a tool to teach life skills as well as providing the children with regular exercise and an activity alternative to hanging out in gangs, drinking away the afternoons.
A recent component of our programme has been a mass talent identification testing project and we've encountered large numbers of girls - in a range of grades - who didn't take part because they were pregnant. *sigh*
I'm a big supporter of contraceptives (of any form) and I do believe that there is no reason why, in this day and age, women should fall pregnant without intention - provided they are educated about family planning and have access to contraceptives. Life is tough enough without being young, unemployed and pregnant. Oh, and add HIV infected to the mix for good measure...
One of my most favourite TED Talks is this one, by Mechai Viravaidya, also known as Mr Condom in Thailand. Mechai spoke at a recent TEDx event. I'm a big fan.
We have HIV Awareness programmes as well as contraceptive education in schools and yet we have this ever increasing rate of HIV infections and pregnancies. There's a difference about knowing and accessing. I believe that Mr Condom has nailed it with accessibility of contraceptives, empowerment of women and also a societal responsibility to reducing family size for a better quality of life for the community.
Imagine being able to go to your local spaza shop and to be able to get family planning advice and your contraceptive pills (plus condoms for infection protection) with a loaf of bread and a litre of milk. Contraception is not rocket science.
This whole doctor/nurse/clinic setup that we have is difficult for too many people to access (large distances, lack of transport...). Government provides child-grants for women with children (this is contentious because rumour has it that women - young ones especially - have children to get the grants, which they don't use for child-care)...
What about financial facilities and incentives for non-pregnant women? Like micro-credit and assistance with setting up businesses? As Mr Condom says, "If you're pregnant, take care of your pregnancy; if you're not pregnant, you can take a loan out from us". And these non-pregnant women contribute to their communities.
I love Mechai's 'Vasectomy Festival'. I cannot count how many male friends I've told to go for a snip. They've had children and don't want any more - but they just don't go. Dudes, you've still got that rifle, it just ain't got any live ammo. Stop being so chicken, irresponsible and self-centred. Your wife shouldn't have to keep taking artificial hormones when you could go for a little procedure. Geezzz... I've done this to rats - it really isn't a big deal.
Interestingly, Mr Condom's primary goal is not population and HIV control, it's about raising the standard of living of people in his country. But, it starts with population control.
I recently did some school visits in the Free State - schools under my wing where our coaches assist with Life Orientation teaching and sports coaching. Every school has a feeding scheme where they provide the children with lunch; beans and samp, pap and gravy or such. This is probably their main decent meal for the day. We've got 36,000 children that our coaches access weekly - and that's only in 71 schools of the thousands in SA.
Most of the children can't take part in after-school activities because they have to rush home to take care of younger siblings. These child-headed households are a serious and sad reality.
We have a poverty problem AND we have a population problem. Dealing with the latter goes a long way to fixing the former - it may take 30 or 40 years, but Mr Condom has proved that it works.
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According to a news report on Friday, we have 5.7 million HIV infected people in SA. We can expect to have another five million infected over the next two decades.
"Total costs over the next two decades, to reduce the number of new infections, are estimated to be as much as $102 billion IF the country steps up spending on drugs, increases the number of those receiving treatment and plans to prevent the spread of the disease."
The dude interviewed in the news report said that if we continue with current HIV awareness and prevention programmes we could expect to have 11 million new infected people in 20 years. Ja - a clear sign that current programmes ARE NOT WORKING!
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