Love Matters: teaching young Kenyans about a safe and healthy sex life
|
Version 0 of 1. One of Helen Muthoni’s unhappiest memories of high school is the sudden transformation of her 14-year-old classmate’s personality after she was raped by a friend during the school holidays. “There was all this pressure among girls to say what they were up to during the break and a real pressure to be cool, so my friend went to this house party, where she was invited by someone she thought she could trust. He was obviously anything but a friend because he took advantage of her, and I remember she changed completely after coming back to school. She was no longer the happy, bubbly girl I knew,” said Muthoni. Related: Shuga: the taboo-breaking African TV show confronting unsafe sex and HIV That episode was one of the reasons why Muthoni, whose stage name is Helena, joined a new initiative that uses music and drama to answer the questions about sex and love with which many young Kenyans struggle. With her wide vocal range and powerful lyrics about the exploitation of young girls in relationships, Helena was a comfortable winner in the “people’s choice” category of the Love Matters music awards. The festival, at which dozens of young Kenyans engaged in a night of song and dance, was aimed at encouraging discussions about love and sex. The event was part of a project by the UK’s Institute of Development Studies and RNW Media, a campaigning group that seeks to use the media to inspire social change. IDS researchers have been studying young Kenyans’ sexual attitudes and experiences. They found that some respondents said they had engaged in sex as early as the age of 12 or 13, without any knowledge of how to keep themselves and their partners safe. Several also reported being raped. The findings match those of several earlier studies, which concluded that Kenyans were becoming sexually active at a younger age but had very limited access to information on sex. The breakdown of the traditional system where boys and girls were tutored on the subject during initiation ceremonies after they attained puberty has broken down, while conservative elements within society, particularly religious figures, have consistently campaigned against the introduction of sex education in schools. The Love Matters initiative uses web, mobile and social media platforms to offer young people information that can help them have a safe and healthy sex life. It focuses on people between the ages of 18 and 30 in India, Mexico, Venezuela, Kenya, China and parts of the Middle East. “Sex and relationships have a big impact on young people’s lives, but many live in regions where information about sexual health and rights are censored and taboo,” said Hannah Wallace Bowman, of RNW media. “Love Matters is a reality check, offering sexual health information with a positive take on pleasure and relationship satisfaction.” Related: 'I didn’t know I could become pregnant after having sex for the first time' | Mary Wanjiku Mwangi On a Saturday night, dozens of young Kenyans arrived at an auditorium in the suburbs of Nairobi to watch performances by artists from the Sauti Academy, who have received training from international performers working with the Love Matters team. The star of the evening was Joshua Omari, a soloist whose song Dot Com, about the phenomenon of sexual abuse in parts of Nairobi, saw him bag the award for best performance. “Dot Com is a wake-up call to a perishing generation, it’s a call to go and identify where we went wrong as a society and try and do something about it,” he said. “Issues like teenage sex and pregnancy, pornography, gender violence and rape are things that have affected almost everyone in Kenya. We do not talk about them, but they are there. This is something that needs to be addressed, and change is possible.” Helena said she hoped that her song about recovering from a rape ordeal and the importance of speaking out would help survivors of violence. “I’m thrilled I won,” she said. “This is just amazing and was totally unexpected. But I hope this project serves a wider cause because I believe that music and song can be therapeutic and help people heal past hurt.” |