Auntie Stella reaching across borders: action research for sexual and reproductive health

Sexual and reproductive health (SRH) of youth are important concerns across many African countries, given the high incidence of sexually transmitted diseases (STIs) and the risk factors that have led to these elevated levels (including gender-based violence). The individual focus of many didactic and information-based approaches to SRH have been criticised for assuming rational decision-making and women’s individual agency in the sensitive arena of sexual interactions, where dynamics of power and gender as well as economic and social pressures are strong influences. Enabling behaviour change in sexually risky situations needs more in-depth and sustained psycho-educational interventions.
This paper will present the findings of some small scale trials of collaborative group-based material developed in Zimbabwe. Action research was used to evaluate discursive the psycho-educational materials entitled 'Auntie Stella: Teenagers talk about sex, life and relationships'; which has features that correspond with more successful HIV-prevention interventions. The cards focus on the challenges of appropriately accessing healthcare in relation to sexuality, contraceptive access and use, coping with sexually risky situations, attitudes to STIs and HIV-related testing and treatment. There is the need to deepen knowledge around these issues and to encourage more informed help-seeking behaviour.
We trialled both the English and some translated isiXhosa cards with groups of university students (ages 18-24). The audio-recorded material was transcribed (with translations where necessary); and analysed using variants of thematic analysis. This paper will present students' responses to the content of the material, as well as their reflections on their learning through the processes. Since the participants included people from six sub-Saharan African countries, the presentation will illustrate how a grassroots programme developed in Africa has enabled us to learn from each other and will propose further potential developments.

Exploring the roles teachers play in addressing menstruation in school settings

Menstruation is a biological process and phenomenon that affects and impacts all areas and aspects of an adolescent girl’s life, and also directly impacts their educational journey. Experiences of menstruation within the school community/environment can either positively or negatively affect the young girl’s schooling career. This was an exploratory, qualitative study which investigated the role of teachers in schools’ settings by addressing the menstruation phenomenon. Six focus group interviews were conducted with teachers that were purposefully selected from three urban and rural schools within the Northern Metropole region in the Western Cape. Four major themes emerged through thematic analysis, such as school attendance, culture, experiences and perceptions of teachers, and recommended key resources. Findings illustrate that there is a direct link between menstruation and school attendance. Challenges such as lack of sanitary products creates a barrier for school attendance. A better understanding of culture, and the challenges that menstruating girls face is needed to provide the proper and adequate support. Educational policies which highlight the provision of sanitary resources to girls as well as inform best practises for teachers.

Community and sociostructural inequity:
Critical approaches to women’s reproductive justice in Nicaragua

Given the worldwide violation of women’s reproductive and educational rights, there is a crucial need to better understand the psychosocial processes that facilitate justice. International conventions, such as those put forward by the United Nations, strive to provide legal frameworks through which women’s rights can be protected. As important as these approaches are, a law-focused perspective has inadvertently prioritized efforts led by predominately white women to attain and defend legal rights, with little attention afforded to understanding how socio-cultural contexts enable or limit the actualization of women’s rights. Instead, the current study took a reproductive justice approach to understanding reproductive decision-making and educational aspiration by examining how a community-based organization in rural Nicaragua challenged gendered psychosocial processes related to women’s rights violations. Because a goal of social justice research is a reconfiguration of knowledge production, the study was designed in accordance with Mohanty’s (2003) assertion that understanding struggles for justice must involve illuminating majority-world women’s engagement with resistance. Although most reproductive organizing throughout the world has been undocumented, this study aims to “put the activism of women of color in the foreground” by considering activists in a majority-world setting as an example for rethinking conventional scientific wisdom and demonstrating action related to the broad project of justice. Using structural equation modeling with in a sample of almost 300 women, we found that organizational participation interrupted socio-cultural norms related to structural oppression by impacting women’s self-esteem and powerlessness, thereby increasing the potential for women’s reproductive decision-making and educational aspiration. Our findings suggest that trying to understand how to enhance women’s human rights, without considering the social-structural contexts that enable or limit rights, is not enough to create viable routes to gender justice.