How dire is our sexual health?
With Chlamydia more than doubling since 1999, the state of Britain’s sexual health certainly appears abysmal. In 2008 there were 123, 018 diagnosed cases in 2008 (http://www.avert.org/std-statistics-uk.htm), and the statistics for other infections don’t fare much better; genital warts has increased dramatically since the start of the millennium and syphilis has also followed the same trend. So what does this mean for young people in the West Midlands? Perhaps more than was first perceived- within the region there has been a 428% increase in the number of diagnosed cases of HIV with Birmingham alone recording 1,391 in 2009 alone (http://www.sexualhealthbirmingham.nhs.uk).
Naturally the questions raised about the state of our sexual health often revolve around the state of sex education, our apparent lack of knowledge about contraception also means that the West Midlands is seriously below target in halting teenage pregnancies; February 2011 statistics revealed that the rate of pregnancies across the region was 43.9% per 1000, compared to 38.3% per 1000 across England and Wales (http://nhslocal.nhs.uk). Despite there being a decrease throughout Warwickshire and Stoke- on- Trent, there have been surges in Herefordshire and Staffordshire. So is the state of our sexual health that appalling? The opinions of D/MYP from the West Midlands were mixed; Mo Sahir, DMYP for Birmingham responded with- ‘In my area there’s not really a problem, but greater education needs to be provided; there might be one person who doesn’t know.’ On the other hand Alex, MYP for Walsall noted, ‘There is bad sexual health in my area. People go around schools for an hour a week, yet I have never had a sexual health lesson,’ and Charlotte Kelly, MYP for Staffordshire stated- ‘there is a forum about sexual health but it’s not well known. The Chlamydia tests in college are good- yet there is no emotional advice.’
So who is to blame for the lack sexual health education in the West Midlands? Perhaps it is the media- pushing explicit images into our minds through magazines, television and even radio; it’s easy to be convinced that unsafe sex is without consequences. Yet perhaps it is the lack of dedication and commitment from teachers, who perceive sexual health as taboo and an embarrassment- in my experience, sexual health lessons have been filled with a sense of misplaced humour- how are students supposed to take STIs seriously when adults fail to do so? Whatever the cause of this quandary, there is no denying that it is rapidly increasing in prominence, a dilemma that must be addressed effectively.
The day in the life of an MYP
Handing out surveys is easier said than done. Only once you have taken a hundred surveys and hit the streets of Telford do you realise that, actually, nobody wants to fill out surveys. No matter how important, how fancy and how significant you tell people these surveys are, they still refuse to do them.
Occasionally, a teen’s will power will crumple under our persuasiveness, and they will fill out a survey with as little effort as possible, desperately glancing up every other second looking for an opportunity to escape.
Just as we were giving up hope, accepting the fact that half the people of Telford refuse to care about its future, Park Live came along. A day in Telford Town Park of live music from amateur bands, it was the perfect chance to corner young people and bombard them with surveys.
It seemed here, when there were no shops calling their name, people were willing to spend a few minutes of their precious time reading the questions and sincerely ticking the correct boxes. One set of youth, however, were adamant that in return for answering our questions, I owed them all lollypops. Despite being robbed of my sweets, my voice and my UKYP pens, we continued throughout the day and managed to recover 250 completed surveys from the youth – an impressive result.
Combined with the schools we contacted and the few teens without enough will power to say no, we actually had quite a remarkable pile of surveys. Then came the tallying. One by one, each survey was to be read and the answers tallied. Needless to say, it took a while.
It would have been a lot worse had some of the survey answers not been so amusing. My favourite were the teenagers who thought it was be hilarious to say the most common mode of transport they use are Trams. Especially when these teens gave us their Telford post codes. Considering Telford doesn’t own a Tram system, these youth clearly cannot read or know of a transport system the rest of the Telford population do not. Other people drew their own boxes. I don’t know what ran through their minds when they thought that would be useful to anyone , and that goes to the people who answered the question ‘how much do you think a single bus fare should be?’ with ‘dunno’ and ‘dunno mum pays’ as well. Some people wrote ‘what’s this?’ beside the term ‘Week Rider’. I was stood beside them whilst they were filling it out. WHY DID THEY NOT JUST ASK ME?
Ignoring the surveys that made no sense, I spent a good few hours tallying the results, reading each question over and over again until they all blurred into one and I could no longer distinguish between tally lines, letters, numbers, boxes and ticks. To be fair, the million tally lines that littered each page gave one quite a sense of pride at their achievement. I was genuinely surprised at the number of surveys we managed to get filled out – even if they did leave me questioning both my sanity and where on earth the Telford tram system is.
Fares Fair
At the start of our term in office a ballot was conducted to decide the campaign of UKYP West Midlands this year. ‘Youth opportunities’ came out on top. We then sub-categorised youth opportunities and conducted another vote which revealed that ‘transport’ was the main issue regarding youth opportunities. The campaign aims then discussed what the main issues of the transport across the west midlands are, and decided upon prices and in particular the bus fares.
When our initial campaign aims group was formed we discussed the best way to back up our claims that the bus prices were too expensive, and decided that data was the only way we could do so. To collect our data we constructed a survey, to be sent out in local areas, to determine where was in most need of lower prices, as well as an overall feel for the situation young people are in due to the extortionate travel expenses. The survey is currently in the process of circulation and we aim to receive 8000 responses from each local area, so that the young people of the West Midland’s opinions cannot be ignored.
Recently we have received £300 in the O2 think big funding scheme as well as another £600-ish pound from elsewhere. We plan to use this money on creating our short film or advert which will be shown at the event in December. At our meeting on the 3rd September we came up with a plan for our advert (although it’s top secret and can’t be revealed!) and hope to start filming on 1st October, using a song written by one of our MYPs as the soundtrack! It’s exciting stuff!
There’s a great diverse and experienced team steering the campaign in the best direction and with a bit of luck we’ll achieve exactly what we came here to do: make travel cheaper for young people across the West Mids!
The news, our take.
One of the big news stories of 2011 has been the uprising in the Middle East. Personally I’m happy to see dictatorships fall and people’s republics becoming strong from them. We have seen some of the biggest dictatorships in the world fall, such as Egypt, which has put its former leader and members of his family on trial.
Libya is a funny one, only a few years ago the USA and Britain were happy working with Libya and Gaddafi at arm’s length over oil but fighting Al-Qaeda has turned on Mad Dog(Gaddafi) and instead British and American forces support a mixture of groups who nobody’s never heard of. This is the main concern for me. Are we helping to replace one dictatorship with an even worse one? Time will tell but it will be a good thing if someone like Gaddafi isn’t in power and as a student of history it is interesting that the media is showing pictures of torture chambers and detainment camps very similar to when Nazi Germany fell. One thing I’m not sure about is weather the people of the middle-east are ready for a new style of government, especially as very few of these countries have ever tasted western democracy.
At home in Britain there have been riots in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and my home city of Wolverhampton. Whilst I’m disgusted at the riots and I saw the mass free for all to get the biggest plasma screen, I am concerned that the police struggled to control it. I do not blame the police at all because there dammed if they don’t act and dammed if they do act. What I mean by this was it was only a few weeks before that a police officer was charged for the man slaughter of a protester in the G40 riots. Like many things in Britain we are very centre. We are not left or right wing. For instance people were outraged at the looting but when a young lad is given a 2 year jail term for picking up a T-shirt from a shop that had already been cleared out by looters earlier in day and walked off with the T shirt and then handed himself in and pleaded guilty. Now from looking at that from the outside what will prison do to that lad? The system has let him down there and I reckon he would be better served helping his community.
The Coalition Governments cuts programme continues. This time it’s the brave men and women of our armed forces who are being cut. It amazes me that people who have given so much to their country get a P45 when there fighting the Taliban. It disgusts me that this government can do this to these people who put their lives on the line daily. Don’t get me wrong Labours defence spending was out of control and seriously over budget and I believe this was down to bad project management but why are brave troops on the front line having to take this burden. Britannia once ruled the waves but after these cuts, I think are ability to cope with world affairs will be greatly damaged especially with resent developments in the Middle East. It comes to something were we have to share aircraft carriers with the French.
It has just been the 10th anniversary of twin towers something that I remember watching as an 8 year old and will always remember. Years after this I watched a documentary called 102 minutes that changed America. It’s made up of film reels filmed by people on the day as it happened and it was one the most interesting documentaries I’ve ever watched (and I’ve watched a few). It was a day that didn’t just change America but the world. It was the modern day pearl harbour and the war on terror continues and who knows when this War is going to end.
As we go from a summer that was bit of a letdown after the warm start, to autumn we go into party conference season. All three party leaders must be feeling a bit under pressure. Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, must be under pressure from his party members after selling their souls on university fees and a long list of other polices. He should also be worried that his party is at an all time low in terms of the polls. Labour leader Ed Miliband is under pressure to prove that he would be a better leader than his brother. Labours position on the cuts and the economy is still un-clear and the unions who bank role his party want some answers. Also poor commons performances won’t help his reputation with back benchers, many of who were big supporters of his brother David Milliband. Mean while, David Cameron will we worried that his party are behind in the polls and that many Tory party members in the north who were councillors, lost their seats in resent local elections. Many Tory back benchers are un-happy with the amount of power the liberal democrats have in government with many are showing their frustration in PMQs. Also many women voters in a poll said they will not vote conservative in the next election with 78% saying they will vote elsewhere. Add that to state of the economy and that’s one worried Prime minster!
Finally I was watching BBC 1 before match of the day on Saturday and tuned in to the last night of the proms. It may seem to be something for older generation but I enjoy it as it a celebration of British musical culture. Anyway I was surprised how many young people were in the royal Albert hall and at Hyde Park waving flags and singing land of hope and glory. It just goes to show!