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Program makes abstinence a priority
Published 11/21/2008 in News
By SHAJIA AHMAD
Some teens were too shy to share their private pledges of abstinence, but others read their commitments aloud.
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Laurie Sisk/Telegram — Cindy Hernandez, 8, wears "beer goggles" to simulate the effects of intoxication during the final abstinence class on Monday night at Ft. Hays State University's satellite office.
"My parents raised me to wait. I want to wait and it be special and wait for that one man," read Veronica.
Another girl wrote why it was important for her to abstain from sex until she was ready.
"We have to respect our bodies until we are prepared physically and mentally," read Elizabeth. "Including that, I want to wait until I'm married, and I also want to be prepared and educated."
The teenagers, who wrote the letters to their future spouses, will share them this weekend in a graduation ceremony at the culmination of a local abstinence-education program, which has been facilitated by local officials from the Finney County Health Department and Fort Hays State University.
Eight boys and girls between the ages of 11 and 15 participated in the Quinceañera Program, which encompasses a curriculum that aims to reevaluate the rituals of the coming-of-age celebration for 15-year-old girls of Hispanic or Latino communities.
The program, which works to foster communication between parents and children around this culturally rich event, was adopted as a local health and education initiative from a private, nonprofit organization by the name of Friends First, based in Littleton, Colo.
The program's facilitators also hoped to educate teens about sexually transmitted diseases and teen pregnancy. Adolescent pregnancy rates are much higher in Finney County than the rest of the state, according to the latest report by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.
A five-year average rate of teens who gave birth in Kansas is 27 per 1,000 girls between the ages of 10 and 19. The same rate is 40 per 1,000 in Finney County. The KDHE also found that teenage pregnancy rates are slightly higher in densely settled rural areas compared to urban or semi-urban areas.
During the class, the last in a series that began in mid-September, the six girls and two boys handed in their written pledges to Stacy Gonzalez, one of the program's facilitators, who gave them all her support.
"It's going to be tough, mi hija," said Gonzalez, using the Spanish endearment for 'daughter' as she sat down one-by-one with the teens. "Sex is great, but it's even greater when it's with the right person."
Gonzalez, a disease intervention specialist with the county health department, encouraged the teens to talk to their parents or turn to her or Martha Perkins, the area Fort Hays center director, for advice.
"We'll always be here for you," Gonzalez said. "And, if you break the pledge, don't worry because stuff happens. It's not the end of the world."
Earlier in the night during the class held at the local FHSU building, 311 Campus Drive, several of the kids and parents got hands-on experience with the curriculum's topics.
Gonzalez passed around distorted-vision goggles that simulated the effects of drunkenness, and teenagers and parents alike struggled to walk in a straight line or pick up objects from the floor with the goggles on.
All of the family members were warned against the dangers of under-age drinking and drunken driving.
"All you mothers who say you don't drink, you say to your husband, 'Let me drive, because my life and my children's lives are in your hands,'" Gonzalez said as she addressed the small group of about 20.
Later in the night as the children turned their pledges in and chatted about what they were going to wear to the graduation ceremony, the parents -- many of whom did not speak English and communicated through Perkins -- discussed the need to continue the dialogue about sex with their teenagers long after the class is over. The parents agreed that resources and information were not as readily available in their generation, a time when talking openly about sex was much more taboo.
"None of my aunts, not my grandmother, no one talked to us about this," said Marta Alvarez, who added that it was difficult for her to answer questions about sex from her two daughters prior to the program but felt better equipped to approach the topic now.
Other mothers agreed they wanted what was in the safety and best interest of their teenagers.
"I would like my daughter to keep her virginity until her marriage, but it has to be up to her," said Luisa Frayre, who has a 15-year-old daughter. "My job is to keep reminding her about what is important and what makes her happy."
Gonzalez said families can lose sight of the Quinceañera's traditions, which can be traced back thousands of years to the indigenous people of Latin America. She believes, backed by the premise of the program, that modern practices of the rite-of-passage event can sometimes put girls at a greater risk for early sexual activity and pregnancy if they are not armed with the right information.
"In my mother's generation, the girls, they were probably all virgins at this age. But girls nowadays, they are fast, and more and more are becoming sexually active at a younger age," said Gonzalez, who added that sometimes the parties coinciding with the daughter's 15th birthday can become a symbol of status and power by a family.
Many of the parents agreed.
Blanca Sandoval listed the iconic symbols of the Quinceañera celebration, including a cake, a cushion a girl kneels on and a tradition in which her father slips the daughter's shoes onto her feet.
"They have and do all these things, but they don't always know the meaning," Sandoval said.
The crux of the curriculum, which also addressed issues of peer pressure, self-esteem, the media, good decision-making skills and more, appealed to Gonzalez because it returned to the values she saw as important to Mexican-Americans like herself.
"We, too, have a value system in place, and some of these are incorporated into the program," Gonzalez said, adding that regardless of whether teenagers have sex or choose abstinence, they need the tools and education to stay safe.
Despite a slight increase in the number and rate of teenage pregnancies in 2005 and 2006, there continues to be a general downward trend: Pregnancy rates have dropped 15 percent overall over the last 20 years in Kansas, reflecting on a smaller scale the downward trend of teen pregnancies. Of the 19 million new sexually transmitted infections each year, almost half are among those age 15 to 24, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or CDC. Among the mandatory-reported sexually transmitted diseases -- chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis -- racial and ethnic minorities continue to be disproportionately affected, as well, according to CDC.
While the disparities may be, in part, because racial and ethnic minorities are more likely to seek care in public health clinics that report STDs more completely than private providers, CDC researchers say the reporting bias does not fully explain the differences. Other contributing factors include limited access to quality health care and poverty.
Dana Manna, a registered nurse with the Finney County Health Department, said anyone, regardless of age or gender, can come in for confidential family planning or health education and advice, and younger people often are the ones who seek the assistance.
Both facilitators of the Quinceañera program, who recruited the families by posting fliers and through announcements on La Nueva, the KSSA local Spanish-language radio station, said they are planning future Quinceañera classes, but have no definite dates yet.
As the class came to a close Monday night, many of the girls chattered about the dresses they would wear for this weekend's Quinceañera graduation ceremony, during which friends and family will honors the teens' pledges to stay abstinent.
"I don't know if I could have made this pledge," Gonzalez said. "These kids have to be living with more peer pressure than I had growing up."
Found 1 comment(s)!
ABSTINANCE A PRIORITY - YEAH RIGHT
Garden city is the teen pregnancey capital of the nation. And most of those teen mothers are hispanic. For managing to get themselves pregnant, they are rewarded with welfare and day care, furnished by the taxpayer. For abstinace, the rewards are not so immediate. There needs to be stronger emphasis on the STD part of sex education. After all, sex can kill you. And that needs to be made loud and clear.
Posted by: Kate Johnson on 11/21/2008
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