UNESCO recently published a range of products that have been developed relating to a series of work exploring sexuality education in the digital space. Also a report was published based on a consultation on the health and wellbeing challenges facing young people in the context of school closures and other lockdown measures in the time of COVID-19.
The products related to exploring sexuality education in the digital space:
- Switched On Symposium Report:A report from a 3-day global symposium held in February (jointly by UNESCO, UNFPA, IPPF European Network and BZgA). The symposium explored the opportunities and challenges for capitalizing on digital spaces to strengthen efforts to deliver comprehensive sexuality education to adolescents and young people.
- A series of posters showcasing examples of digital spaces delivering sexuality educationto adolescents and young people across the world. This series of posters featured as part of the exhibition at the symposium ‘Switched On. The posters are snapshots of digital sexuality education providers who are doing just that – taking sexuality education to the digital spaces where adolescents and young people can search for and hopefully find, the information they need.
- Sexuality Education for Young People in Digital Spaces: A review of the evidence, commissioned by UNESCO and written by the Institute of Development Studies. This desk review examines the available evidence on the extent to which digital content can influence knowledge, attitudes and practices of adolescents and young people (aged 10–24 years), and looks at the potential for digital spaces to be used to add value to the delivery of comprehensive sexuality education (CSE).
- Support. Connection: How are young people engaging with digital spaces to learn about bodies, sex and relationships?, commissioned by UNESCO and written by Restless Development. This research aimed to further shed light on young people’s (aged 10-24) engagement with digital spaces for obtaining information and education about bodies, sex and relationships. The report presents the results of a global survey completed by almost 4,000 young people from around the world, as well as a series of focus group discussions carried out in five countries. It provides insight into how young people are using digital spaces to find answers to their questions, and their experiences in doing so.
The report Health and Wellbeing Experiences for Young People in the Times of COVID-19 is based on a consultation in May 2020 with young digital content creators and users. It is the results of a partnership between the YTH (youth tech health) initiative and UNESCO. The researchers wanted to know what challenges youth were facing, what has changed in their lives since the COVID-19 pandemic began and what has stayed the same, and what youth-facing/serving organizations like the YTH initiative could do to support them.
NCD Child recently launched a new report entitled ‘
The World Health Organization is today launching a new kit for school students aged 13-17 to alert them to the tobacco industry tactics used to hook them to addictive products. Increasingly, the tobacco industry is targeting young people with nicotine and tobacco products in a bid to replace the 8 million people that its products kill every year.
UNESCO is calling on inspiring voices from across the globe to take part in a series of online discussions to help us imagine the world taking shape as a result of the COVID-19 crisis. The series will kick off in May with a unique event featuring leading women experts and thinkers.
he Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC), a WHO collaborative cross-national study, has been seeking to understand and monitor young people’s health across Europe and Canada for more than 30 years. As the study has grown to include 50 member countries and regions, the utility of the data it provides about the health, well-being, social environment and health behaviour of 11-, 13- and 15-year-old boys and girls has also grown. The seventh international report offers findings on adolescent health and well-being from 45 participating countries and regions in 2017/2018. It presents data from over 220 000 young people in 45 countries and regions in Europe and Canada. The data focus on social context (relations with family, peers, school and online communication), health outcomes (subjective health, mental health, overweight and obesity, and injuries), health behaviours (patterns of eating, physical activity and toothbrushing) and risk behaviours (use of tobacco, alcohol and cannabis, sexual behaviour, fighting and bullying) relevant to young people’s health and well-being. New items on electronic media communication and cyberbullying and a revised measure on family meals were introduced to the HBSC survey in 2017/2018 and measures of individual health complaints and underweight are also included for the first time in the report.
About Didier Jourdan
