Report and pics by Divvy Kant Upadhyay

Mangalore, Apr 18: “There’s a dire need to create awareness and counselling among youngsters of today with regard to their sexuality and fertility. It is this awareness that can go a long way in preventing the rapid spread of the HIV among this vulnerable and most productive age group of any society the world over, especially in the Indian subcontinent,” according to Dr Hanna Klaus who is in the city to conduct a TOT (Training of trainers) programme ‘Teen STAR’ (Sexuality Teaching in the context of Adult Responsibility).

Dr Hanna Klaus who is the executive director at the Natural Family Planning (NFP) Center of Washington DC in USA was speaking at the inauguration of the programme at the Manipal Aquinova Centre at Kasturba Medical College (KMC) Hospital in Attavar.

KMC dean Dr C V Raghuveer, welcoming the guests, highlighted the tremendous need for awareness among the youth today, especially “because of the rapid lifestyle changes, where, owing to the smaller nuclear families the teenagers do not have anyone to talk to and threfore tend to spend all their time on the computer or SMS-chatting on the mobile phones, thus allowing their young volatile minds to go haywire”. He emphasized the safety of children, making sure that “at the end of the day our kids must be prevented from being taken for a ride in the midst of a cultural shock that is spreading across the country.”

A Gynaecologist, Dr Hanna has a wide range of experience having worked for many years in Pakistan, Bangladesh and India. She aims to target the youth from the five crucial angles - spiritual, intellectual, emotional, physical and social. She believes that “Generally young people at their age are not able to take decisions like adults. Sexual Mating is fun and the youth enjoy it on the pretext of ‘Live for the moment, who has seen tomorrow?’. She explains, “that while having fun and pleasure, the teenagers are not interested in the consequences that hit them hard later.”

It is true that families and communities are being ruined by the spread of HIV. It is estimated that within 3 years that India will have the highest number (10 million) of HIV-positive people in the world. Safer sexual habits and practices need to be encouraged at a very large scale to fight the oncoming disaster caused by HIV/AIDS.

Dr Prabha Adhikari, professor of Medicine who was instrumental in organizing the TOT was present along with other senior faculty of KMC, Mangalore.