Sex Education Launched in Nepal, Targets Young People to Curb Teenage Pregnancy

A program about sex education to enlighten teenagers and to curb the increase of teenage pregnancy in Nepal has been launched.

The program is entitled Rockets and Space and it uses games in order to let the young men and women be more attracted and engaged to learning about the subject. The initiative is being held at four Marie Stopes centers of the 36 established in Nepal. The program was funded by Australian aid and will run for three years.

Aside from the centers, there are also visits to schools and communities as well as stalls set up along the streets as volunteers hand out leaflets and condoms.

According to The Guardian, one instance wherein games were used to entice the young people to listen is when they were asked about what contraceptive protects them against pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. These young people then grab cards and raise the correct answer. A prize awaits the person who answered the quickest and the loudest.

The program was called Rockets and Space as it represents the men's penis and the women's vagina, respectively. Aside from the program itself, young people are also given notebooks, t-shirts, keyrings, and many more promoting the matter.

Cartoon characters are also used to disseminate facts about safe sex, masturbation, menstruation and even wet dreams. Young people could also take a look at the Facebook page of the program for more information. It has more than 100,000 like as of current.

One of the volunteers, named Deepa Pradhan, said in a statement that games make the young see that sex education is important and it helps them keep these topics in mind. Pradhan has been working with Marie Stopes for two years since graduating from a social work degree. She added, "I really enjoy my job. I give young people information that they might not want to talk about, but [which] they really need. It's very important for the youth, as our society doesn't allow us to talk about sexual health openly."

Nepal is recorded as the third highest country that has most numbers of pregnancy rate in south Asia back in 2014. Due do this, the Nepalese government has proposed focusing more on family planning services in the next five years.