Sex Party Wants Sexual Ed at N.T. Youth Events

Written by Seranna Shutt

Tuesday, 17 May 2011 12:34

The Northern Territory has the highest STI rates in the country (ref) and the Australian Sex Party wants to do something about it.
NT Sex Party coordinator, Seranna Shutt, wants to kick off a new campaign of educating youth about exciting but informed sexual conduct but fears the Christian right will lobby hard to stop it. ”This campaign has been started after organisations have contacted NT major events over the past eight years requesting permission to educate youth about STIs and hand out information, including condoms”, she said. “I’ve been to many STI/HIV international and national conferences where we hear about big music festivals all around the world having health messages, condoms and even STI testing onsite. It’s been highly effective.”

Ms Shutt said that the first action would be to request community consultation with young people to ask them if they want health messages and health freebies. There should be clear criteria for organisations who want to attend and guidelines should be in place for community groups to attend events in a particular area with no religion and no politics policies allowed. “Bass in the Grass is the premier youth event each year in the N.T. with thousands of young people attending, so it seems natural to have sexual information at events like these”.

Ms Shutt said that peer education was recognized as the most effective model of increasing STI knowledge. If alcohol was allowed to be sold at youth venues then information and messages regarding sexual issues that are facing youth should also be allowed. “  I understand that people come to a festival to party and have fun, however having thousands of people in one place and in ‘chill out’ rooms makes for an ideal place to convey sexual education material”, she said. “When festivals go for many hours, some people actually enjoy having time out from the bands. It is such a wasted opportunity not to have something for them”.

Seranna Shutt: 0406748691
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