Gente Joven: meeting needs.

PIP: To meet the sexual and reproductive health needs of adolescents, the Mexican family planning association MEXFAM established the Gente Joven (young people) project in 1986. Rather than expending scarce resources on setting up youth centers, Gente Joven was introduced at sites where young people are already assembled--schools, recreation centers, meeting points for street gangs. To date, the program has reached hundreds of thousands of young people in every state and large town in Mexico; in addition, thousands of teachers have been trained to take sexuality education to schools throughout the country. Preliminary surveys of adolescents identified 5 major subjects about which sex education was most in demand: communication within the family, anatomy and the physiology of the reproductive organs, premarital sex decision making, sexually transmitted diseases, and family planning and pregnancy. The sex education module is implemented in 4 2-hour sessions. Young people have been involved not only in designing the curriculum, but also in preparing the print materials, films, and videos used in the schools. Emphasized is the importance of overcoming gender inequalities and promoting reciprocal relationships between the sexes. Despite some attempts by pro-life groups to close down the program, Gente Joven has become one of the most popular, effective MEXFAM activities and is at the cutting edge of social change in Mexico.^ieng