Choose to Know - Promoting Sexual Health in Jisr a-Zarqa

Ikhlas Amash |

Hillel Yaffe Medical Center

Project goal:

To provide access to knowledge on family planning, sexual health and bodily rights to middle school students in the village of Jisr a-Zarqa, while ensuring culturally sensitive approach and an emphasis on personal choice.

Project description:

The village of Jisr al-Zarqa faces profound social and economic challenges, including high dropout rates from the education system, early marriages, limited knowledge about sexual health and high birth rates among teen girls. In this reality, there is very little discussion of bodily rights, contraception, or personal future planning. Many teen girls become pregnant at a young age, sometimes without understanding the options open to them.

This project offers an innovative educational and medical intervention system, which will operate in local schools in collaboration with management, welfare teams and female professionals from the community. The lectures will be given by a female gynecologist from the village who will also serve as a model for identification and inspiration. The meetings will focus on issues of family planning, personal boundaries, sexual identity, hygiene, contraceptives and identifying risk situations.

Alongside the doctor, a social worker will participate, who will facilitate part of the sessions and present practical tools for seeking help, for identifying sexual harassment and abuse, and for self-defense. The program will be accompanied by the production of educational and digital materials in the Arabic language, training for educational teams, and ongoing evaluation of the educational and emotional effectiveness of the intervention.

Our vision is to make the program an integral part of the local and regional education system, while spreading the operating model to additional communities in the Arab sector, with an emphasis on promoting sexual health, preventing early marriages, and personal empowerment for both girls and boys.