Video: Authors of Old Enough to Know Give Children Innovative Tools to Talk About Sex

The authors of Old Enough To Know: Consulting Children About Sex and AIDS Education in Africa, Colleen McLaughlin, Sharlene Swartz, Susan Kiragu, Mussa Mohamed and Shelina Walli, spent two years finding out just how much children already know about sex. They worked with children aged approximately 12 years and used the innovative photo-voice method to allow the children to share the sources that they learnt about sex from. The children were given cameras and told to photograph the people and places that they were getting their information from.

Cambridge University spoke to McLaughlin about what their research revealed:

In the absence of a cure or vaccine for HIV/AIDS, educating children about safe sex is regarded by many as the primary means for prevention – the United Nations and others have described it as “the social vaccine” – but the question of how best to do this has long been debated.

The need for such efforts remains acute but is fraught with difficulty as deep-rooted socio-cultural, religious and moral constraints remain barriers to effective sex education across Africa and beyond.

• Complete article: University of Cambridge

This video explains what the project is about and shows some of the photographs that the children took as part of the research:

• Not playing? Watch on YouTube

Book details

• Old Enough To Know: Consulting Children About Sex and AIDS Education in Africa by Colleen McLaughlin, Sharlene Swartz, Susan Kiragu, Shelina Walli and Mussa Mohamed
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  EAN: 9780796923745
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