admin | February 17, 2019
This week’s Farmer story from Burkina Faso focuses on opening the communication channels between youth and parents to promote healthy sexuality, among other outcomes. Our Script of the week also focuses on youth and sexuality.
Problems with HIV and AIDS are closely related to many complex social and cultural issues. For example, in some cultures, it is considered “manly” to prove one’s virility by having sex with many partners. In some cultures, young girls have “sugar daddies” who trade sex for other kinds of favours. Widow inheritance may also have an impact on the spread of HIV and AIDS. The inability of women to successfully convince men to use condoms, the poverty that drives some women and men to the sex trade, and many other cultural, social, and power relationships all have a profound impact on the spread and the infection rate of HIV and AIDS in our communities.
In this script, a woman living with HIV argues that not teaching young people about sex and sexuality may lead to the spread of HIV and have other negative consequences. Another interviewee talks about the need to teach youth about sex and sexuality in our schools, homes, and religious institutions.
This is obviously a “hot” or controversial topic. What does your audience think about this? As a broadcaster, you can contribute to community solutions to these issues by broadcasting this script and other programs on this subject. You might want to follow the script with a phone-in program in which listeners express their opinions on the issues raised in the script.
This script is based on actual interviews. You could use this script as inspiration to research and write a script on sexuality and youth in your own region. Or you might choose to produce this script on your station, using voice actors to represent the speakers. If so, please make sure to tell your audience at the beginning of the program that the voices are those of actors, not the original people involved in the interviews.
If you choose to use this script as background material or as inspiration for creating your own program on youth and sexuality, you might consider the following questions:
- Is there any teaching on sex and sexuality (either direct or indirect teaching) in religious institutions in your listening area? If so, what is the teaching? If not, why not? Should religious institutions teach youth about sex and sexuality?
- Do schools teach youth about sex and sexuality? What do your listeners think is the proper role of schools around teaching sex and sexuality to youth?
- At what age should youth be taught about sex and sexuality? What aspects of sex and sexuality should be discussed? What aspects should not be discussed? What role should parents play in teaching children about sex and sexuality? How and when should they discuss these issues with their children?
Don’t forget to get the views of the youth themselves on these issues.