Should Condom Dispensers Be in the Restrooms?

Throughout my undergraduate journey at Morgan State University, I constantly heard of the most infamous rumor that has been passed down for decades: Morgan State was ranked with the highest rate HIV/AIDS and 80% of the students attending the university were HIV positive. As a health education major, this did not sit with me well, and I started to conduct some research to prove whether this infamous rumor had any actuality. I wanted to utilize what I learned as a health education and promotion major. Using my knowledge from my Assessment, Implementation, & Evaluation of Health Promotion Programs course, I implemented a program called the Student Wellness Ambassador Team also known as S.W.A.T. SW.A.T is dedicated to HIV/AIDS and STI

There is a strong need for greater access to current and evidence-based sex education in American public schools. Concurrent with access to information and education about human sexuality, schools should also be offering students safe, anonymous ways of receiving condoms. Condoms are crucial for preventing unwanted pregnancy: and it can easily be said that all teen pregnancies in the United States will be classified as unwanted. Moreover, condoms will prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. When they are used properly, condoms can become lifesavers. However, adolescents are often woefully ignorant about when and how to use condoms. Few adolescents in the United States have ready access to condoms, either at home or in schools. Because of the general prudishness embedded in Bible Belt America, states like Georgia must take a strong stance on the issue. Georgia should follow suit with states like Massachusetts, who have implemented successful condom distribution programs in their schools.

Many questions and concerns have come about regarding this promotion of condoms being distributed in public schools. Will it lower teen pregnancy rates? Will condoms reduce sexually transmitted diseases? Will the distribution of condoms in public

College campuses have seen a rise, in the epidemic of Sexually transmitted diseases. Sexually transmitted diseases have quickly become a household name amongst Americans. The dangers and health issues related to acquiring a STD has been the reason why more attention has been brought to the STD epidemic. The reason for this attention is to hopefully, slow down the rate of STD’S amongst students. There is a very astonishing fact stated by the Agape Pregnancy Resource Center, “Nearly 80% percent of people that are infected with STD’s do not know it. ("Agape Pregnancy Resource Center") The use of condoms, knowing your status, and the practice of abstinence are very effective ways of avoiding contracting STD’s. If we do not make students

Some high schools in large cities do distribute condoms to their students, just as many colleges all over the United States. Yet this should not be limited solely to college students and inner city high school students.

Although, (NIH, 2007) reports that condoms have reduce HIV Transmission by 87-95 percent. To get these African American male students from seeing it to exploring condom use as an option or a benefit is contemplation. However, a Condom Education Program is placed an inner city high school, whose population is 65 percent Afro-American male. NIH reported data is the goal of the program. The objective is by the end of the year, 45% of Afro American sexual active males are

Addressing culturally enforced stigmas is a more difficult of a task. One approach to reduce the embarrassment and discrimination among students would be to implement peer health education. It has been shown that peer education “empower[s] students to help each other promote positive health beliefs and behaviors” (Sloane & Zimmer, 1993, p.241). Peer education programs can often reduce some of the stigma surrounding sexual behaviors and STDs. This is done by increasing the amount of understanding about these topics. By encouraging multiple women to speak, students can begin to understand that not only dirty, irresponsible individuals get STDs. Instead, it begins to humanize the afflicted population. These programs can act as a validation tool to assure afflicted women and educate uninfected women

It is debated if condom machines should or should not be placed in high school washrooms. Condom machines should not be put in secondary school bathrooms because students can avoid feeling pressured, have their own opinion and build courage.

In this day in time it is not an uncommon sight in my school to see a young girl with a baby bump. Or when you hear of that someone has contracted an STD it is not that surprising. My mom speaks of a time when someone contracted a STD it was handled like a death sentence. Also whenever a young girl became pregnant after she started “showing” you would not see her until after the baby was delivered. I believe that there are countless factors to why many teens in my Community are more vulnerable to having risky sex, such as the media, lack of activities and peer pressure. I believe that since most teens between the ages of 13-18 are in school for eight hours out of the day five day a week and many parents are at work when they arrive home until late at night that this issue could be addressed at school. So I believe that schools should pass out condoms to high school students.

I suggest that London International Group should promote the use of condoms worldwide by making campaigns in schools or universities. This would be more a prevention campaign, showing how to avoid the infection and how to minimalize the risks of transmission. They should, for example, show testimonies, in classes, of people infected by the AIDS, and how it changed their lives in a wrong way. Also they could show to teenagers how to use a condom, where they can buy them, and other information related to those

Thesis Statement: Condoms and contraceptives should be freely given to high school students because of its effectiveness against the risks they face caused by their sexual lifestyle of today.

Teens have difficulty grasping the consequences of unprotected sex for themselves, their parents, family members and possibly their unborn child. Unprotected sex among teenagers in El Paso has become an issue seeing as they are not receiving the right information they need to know about sex and how to prevent it, sexually transmitted diseases can be passed on through sexual contact in which can be harmful and be passed on from one person to another, and teen pregnancy and STD’s bring substantial social and economic costs through immediate and long-term impacts on teen parents and their children. Nowadays social media and technology seem to really take a toll on teenagers, the both has impacted teens in a way that it is all they are on. My proposal of fixing this solution is getting the message across through social media and doing presentations at different schools, this will impact teenagers mostly because this is the generation where social media has become a part of their lives. To those with low education about unprotected sex, will pay attention to what is being said, which will be no problem since Google and the internet are there to provide answers to their questions. Lastly, teens do not pay attention to adults in general, but if they listen to what a teen has to say then they will most likely understand, thus a presentation at their school will help them learn more.

Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) continue to plague college campuses, raising questions regarding what efforts can be made to reduce the number of young individuals acquiring STDs on college campuses. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it is estimated that 19 million new infections occur each year, with almost half infecting young people1. Although, STDs are primarily transmitted through the exchange of bodily fluids (i.e. vaginal fluid, semen, and blood), they can also be transmitted through direct contact with the infected area such as human papillomavirus (HPV). If not treated, sexually transmitted diseases can cause serious health consequences such as sterility, ectopic pregnancy, pelvic inflammatory disease, increased risk for HIV infection, organ damage, and death 2,3.

Another issue uncovered was that the sexual health messages provided in schools have a negative focus, urging students to take precaution to avoid pregnancy or the contraction of an STI (Coleman et al., 2010). This risk emphasis makes sexual education an unpleasant topic for students, influencing the way they perceive the class as a positive place, and resulting in students not likely to follow safe sex messages (Coleman et al., 2010).

Coinciding with the onslaught of the new millennium, schools are beginning to realize that the parents are not doing their job when it comes to sexual education. The school system already has classes on sexual education; these classes are based mainly on human anatomy. Most schools do not teach their students about relationships, morals, respect, self-discipline, self-respect, and most importantly contraceptives. Everyday students engage in sexual activity, many of them with out condoms. This simple act jeopardizes these students' futures and possibly their lives. An increasing amount of school systems are starting to combine messages involving abstinence from sexual activity,