BEING A PEER EDUCATOR: SERVING HUMANITY

by Dipo Mohammed

The route that the morality of young people should take in the 21st century has been a topic of great discourse. Often times, people who give advice on the behaviour that young people should exhibit will normally do so based on their understanding without concrete analysis of the belief of others.

Such understanding could be religious or liberal. However, I am more concerned about the kind of

morality that every young person should possess in other to have a positive effect on each other.

Among young people, the issue of Sex has been a topic of debate, many questions come to the fore and varying answers are provided to it. Such questions no doubt get different responses.

However, by virtue of being a Peer Educator courtesy of the UNILAG ANTI AIDS CLUB, I have been educated on certain issues that relates to Sex as well as the sexually transmitted Infections; being a member of THE UNILAG PRESS CLUB makes this medium suitable to educate my peers and colleagues.

Who is a peer Educator? A Peer Educator is someone who enlightens people who are of the same age group or status on issues that concern them. This is what I intend to do in this article. With the kind of exposure that has surfaced on the psyche of young people today and the misconceptions that have come with it, it may be quite difficult to convince young people not to have sex until marriage. However, I intend to focus more on putting in place mechanisms that will enhance attitudes and behaviours that will bring about responsible characters in relation to sex. This is one of the ways I intend to serve Humanity.

The attitude and Behaviour earlier referred to, will stem out of certain values that comports with the overall well-being of the society. When this is gotten right, it becomes easier to relate it to issues about sex. The starting point of such values is helping young people understand who they really are.

It may well be said that people love to hang on to certain beliefs however; pretence takes over when people try to put in place the values they put in for sex. The objective of a peer Educator is about giving the right knowledge and tips on precautions that need to be taken to avoid sexually transmitted infections.

It is important to note that the greatest challenge in our society is that we get to know about things late. As such, much damage might have been done even before an infection is discovered. The male reproductive organ has only one opening while the female reproductive organ has two. For an infection such as Gonorrhea, the male gets to know about it quickly because having eaten through the urethra by the virus, the male feels pain when he is about to urinate.

The female has a urethra which is meant only for that purpose so if she is infected with the virus, it may take a long time before it is discovered and this could have caused severe damage to the body and even destroy the womb. Based on this, it is very important that apart from the HIV status which some people try to check on regularly, there is also the need to have checks on the Hepatitis B and C status. There are checks to be taken to avoid many more STIs. This I believe every young person should take serious.