THE National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) has organised an HIV/AIDs sensitisation workshop for students of Our Lady of Mercy Senior High School (OLAMS) in Tema.
The programme was in partnership with UNESCO, which has adopted diverse strategic interventions aimed at reducing the risk of the epidemic among people.
The intervention, which includes the creation of awareness, promotion of abstinence among the youth, promotion of safe sex practice as well as offering care and support for people living with the disease, is to complement the Ghana Aids Commission’s response to the disease.
The Metropolitan Director of the NCCE, Mr Ebenezer Tetteh-Wayo, expressed regret that stigmatisation and discrimination against people living with HIV had retarded the commission’s drive to encourage people to go for counselling and testing.
“Research shows that 10 per cent of the country’s population do not know their status, hence the NCCE’s advocacy for the populace to show love and affection for carriers of the disease,” Mr Wayo remarked.
He said the high incidence of teenage pregnancy among the youth was a test case which showed an indication that condom use was rather low, a situation he described as bad for the commission.
He also cautioned the students against indulgence in heterosexual relations, which he said was not acceptable in the Ghanaian cultural setting.
Mr Tetteh-Wayo said the sensitisation programme was targeted at the various second cycle institutions within the Tema Metropolitan Area, as students in these institutions were in the age brackets within which sexual activity was all time high.
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