Objective: To teach safe sex practices to adolescents in school, before they start to become sexually active, using peer group education.
Method: To send young medical students back to their old schools to do the teaching, and to get them to make videos suitable for showing to teenage audiences that can be widely circulated to all schools.
Results: The program has been running in Australia since 1992, and has proved highly popular with school teachers, school children, and particularly with medical students. We are now working with medical schools in Beijing and Shanghai, at the invitation of the Chinese Ministry of Health, to see if we can adapt our program to a very different cultural setting.
Conclusion: Educating children about Safe Sex is one of the most effective ways of postponing their onset of sexual activity. It is also the best investment that we can make to ensure people's future reproductive health; if they start right, there is every hope that they will stay right.