What Works for Women and Girls

starts the sessions we would say, “there she goes again with her condoms speech… [we]talked about AIDS and our children, we were bored.” But by the end of the training,women stated, “We saw many role-plays that showed us how to communicate with ourchildren. These were useful skills,” (Phetla et al., 2008: 511). The study found “an overallincrease in the frequency and comfort levels of participants’ efforts to convey the riskHIV poses to their community” (Phetla et al., 2008: 509). The women who participatedin the intervention spoke to children about sexuality issues significantly more often,and the content of their discussions changed. While previously the women warned theirchildren with “vague admonitions,” after the intervention, they provided concrete guidanceto young people: 97.6% of the women who communicated with children aboutsexuality discussed condoms while 58.2% discussed HIV testing (Phetla et al., 2008:511). Young people who lived with the women participants generally wanted to discusssexuality with their parents (Phetla et al., 2008). (Gray III) (youth, communication, sexuality,South Africa)A survey study in 1998 in three sites in Ghana with 526 youth ages 11 to 26 found thatyouth who talked to both adults and peers about reproductive health during the last threemonths were more than twice as likely to have taken actions to protect themselves fromAIDS than those youth who did not talk to anyone about reproductive health during thelast three months. Actions taken to protect themselves from AIDS included: abstinenceor delaying sex; using condoms; one sexual partner; and avoiding risky situations (Wolfand Pulerwitz, 2003). (Gray III) (youth, communication, condoms, sex behavior, abstinence,Ghana)A cross-sectional descriptive study of girls ages 12 to 18 and their mothers in Ugandain 1997 found that 75.8% of mothers reported having discussed the issues of sexualityand HIV/AIDS with their daughters and 67.9% of daughters reported having had theirmothers discuss the topics with them, however, discrepancies between the two groupswere noted in reported frequency and topics covered. Respondents were selected usingthe WHO 30 cluster, seven quota sampling method with 105 households being includedfrom each of the sites, with a total of 186 adolescent girls and 183 of their mothers beingincluded in the study. Five trained research assistants administered questionnaires,both open- and closed-ended, and two focus groups for mothers and four for daughterswere conducted with seven to eight individuals per focus group who were randomlyselected from the questionnaire group. Results from the data collected indicated thatparents were the major source of information concerning sexuality and HIV/AIDS foryoung girls, 32.3% of the time, followed by friends 24.7% of the time, radio 21.5%,teachers 16.6%, books 4.3%, health workers 3.2%, and finally youth clubs 1.6% of thetime. Seventy-five percent of mothers reported beginning sexuality dialogues at puberty,15.9% when a daughter was leaving home for school, 13% when a daughter announcedhaving a boyfriend, 8.7% after a relative died of HIV/AIDS, and 5.1% after the daughterbecame pregnant. On average, mothers reported discussing sexuality matters with theirdaughters 7.8 times per month. Overall, 67.9% of the adolescent girls included in theWHAT WORKS FOR WOMEN AND GIRLS129