Talk GenRe With Community

(Oleh : Pinka Satria Aqsa)

Aceh is one of  deeply Muslim places in Indonesia. Often called the veranda of Islam, it is seen as the birth place of the Muslim religion in Indonesia. at this time the Islamic Shari'a law has also been applied in the province. As we know syari’a guides us to be a good man, but in reality not all teenagers in Aceh do not reflect the principles of Islamic adolescents. According to Indonesia Demographic and Health Survey of Aceh Province 2012 (IDHS 2012), stated generally 7 percent in women aged 15-24 have had sexual intercourse before the age of 18 years. The proportion of women aged 15-24 who had sexual intercourse before age 18 highest among those who live in rural areas and those who completed high school education and above. Surely, this is a problem for teenagers and become an obstacle for women in particular who should be able to plan their lives to a more positive direction. The impacts of moral crisis and less knowledge of Reproductive Health are very harmful to their reproductive function and health in general.

“Reproductive health is a crucial part of general health and a central feature of human development.  It is a reflection of health during childhood, and crucial during adolescence and adulthood, sets the stage for health beyond the reproductive years for both women and men, and affects the health of the next generation.  The health of the newborn is largely a function of the mother's health and nutrition status and of her access to health care” (Guidelines on Reproductive Health, UNFPA).

The fact that mentioned above has reminded me as an ambassador of GenRe (Planning Generation) that as a young leader, we have the responsibility to actively care and act for many people in creative method or new inovation. Talk GenRe is an programe that will encourage young generation by community repitation. Which the informal learning that will incrase reproduction knowledge and how to prepare our future as young generation. Every member of community expected to understand and have new mindset the important of Reproductive Health also how to help others with our hand.

In order to provide an understanding of reproductive health knowledge, The Indonesian Government through National Population and Family Planning (BKKBN) has a program that aims to improve the adolescents’ knowledge of  Reproductive Health. This program is called as GenRe (Planning Generation) program. GenRe program is a program to facilitate the realization of Generation Planning ie healthy adolescent behavior, avoid the risk of triad KRR (Sexuality, HIV and AIDS, drugs), delaying the age of marriage, aspire to realize the happy family prosperous and as example, a model, and resources for their peers.

With the correlation of this Program, I, as a representative of ambassador of GenRe, had done a project that called “Talk GenRe with community” which focus on the importance of reproductive health knowledge and best age at first marriage.  The activities carried out by means of go directly down to the adolescents community and do a friendly discussion with them.

The location that have been selected to run this program are  Banda Aceh as the capital city of Aceh and one regency in Aceh namely Aceh Besar. The purpose of the choice of these places is to balance the knowledge and understanding of the adolescents in the rural (Aceh Besar) and the urban (Banda Aceh). There are 4 communities in disseminating the material chosen, including : Punk; Break Dance; FootBall; Lamkabeu. Each community covers 20 people. This project had run for one month from 1^st to 31 of August, 2014.

This program there are limitations on some aspects of which the funds, the appropriate time and the public response About GenRe is still very varied program in the background because of the people of Banda Aceh city were still very taboo to talk about reproductive health.

From the project that has been done, it is found that the adolescents’ knowledge about Reproductive Health is still very few and they tend to know more about where they can find the places to find out more sufficient informations related to the issue. The reason is because they have difficulties in finding the information from the parents or other adults as the concequency of the taboo culture in Aceh especially if that related about discussing reproductive or sexual education to their chilldren. While having enough knowledge about Reproductive Health is important for central feature of human development. This would be an issue that should be considered by the government and the parents in providing an understanding of the importance of sex education among teenagers.

As mentioned before, this project is correlated with one of the Indonesian government’s program namely GenRe Program by BKKBN. This means that this project is acting as an extension of the government endavour in developing the quality of young people (physically and mentally)  through the role of the peer (GenRe Ambassador).