Few services for adolescent reproductive health care were available in Manila or elsewhere before Remedios extended clinic services and counselling through its AIDS centre and The Youth Zone, which takes advantage of its mall location to provide information on preventing HIV to a new and largely uninformed adolescent audience. As part of The Youth Zone, young people from schools and youth organizations have received training as advocates of adolescent reproductive health. Promoting Adolescent Reproductive Health Young women and men face many health risks, yet they receive inadequate information, guidance and services to help them negotiate the difficult passage to adulthood. Young people want, need and have a right to reproductive health services and information. Creating Awareness, Delaying Sex Education programmes that include HIV prevention can reach young people before they become sexually active and as they begin to establish patterns of sexual behaviour.
Counselling is provided by peers, teachers, health workers and over telephone hotlines.
With the highest rates of infection of any group, young people urgently need information, resources and support if they are to protect themselves. Partnerships to Reach Young People People between 15 and 24 years old comprise the group most vulnerable in the world to HIV infection. It also provides reproductive health services needed by young people, in ways that are welcoming and accessible to them. Talking about sex can be difficult for a parent, but a television programme in Nigeria is convincing many adults that silence can be deadly for their children. It seemed that sex was a topic to be whispered about in secret, and young people found it impossible to ask questions.