Zebene Shewaakena, from the Ethiopia Kale Heywot Church shares the following experience working in schools.

“The issue of sexual behavior among young people connected with HIV and AIDS, like other African countries, is of big concern in Ethiopia. A series of discussions, debates, and exchanges of ideas have been done on the issues among young people for the past couple of years. One issue which makes for lively debate debate is ‘sex before marriage’.

The thought of sex before marriage becomes a big deal among youth in our setting. The argument is made on the fact that firstly if someone practices sex before marriage with a lover, he/she can make a right decision to choose the right future marriage partner. Secondly they said that since abstinence is becoming impossible for many people, having sex with only one lover may keep them away from practicing sex with many partners.

Though the idea received great opposition from the public in the beginning, this thought nowadays is widely accepted among youth and it is now eroding the long standing culture of abstinence until marriage that is the beautiful culture of Ethiopia when we talk about marriage.

In order to fight against such a unhealthy attitude and maintain the value of the existing positive thinking of the society towards preventing the spread of HIV and AIDS, our project attempted to reach youth in small discussion groups through trained facilitators in school and out of school in our project area.

Some of the discussion points in the groups are practicing sex before marriage and its consequences, sex and HIV and AIDS, sex and its social acceptance, the condom and its limitations, what the scripture says about sex and marriage, and its relation with the existing society value.

In effect, a significant numbers of youth, both in schools and out of school, have been convinced about abstinence until marriage and to keep on teaching their peers. But still we face challenges from those who have say that abstinence is practically impossible for youth in this modern day.”