Internal and external body changes

After the sessions on Psychological changes, it was important to build understanding of the students on Body Changes which takes place both externally and internally. Therefore training sessions on Body changes were conducted with the students.

These sessions were conducted in 3 Government schools of Delhi and were done using the 'Story Telling' method. The sessions were done separately with boys and girls so that they feel comfortable during the session. It saw the participation of 258 youths including 141 girls and 117 boys from these schools.

The major component of the session was:

• Internal and external body changes for Understanding the various physical changes and biological changes taking place during adolescence for developing a positive acceptance of Menstruation (myths and facts) to debunk various myths related to menstruation and break the shame and taboos associated with it.
• Masturbation and wet dreams: to learn correct information about these terms.
• Sexually transmitted infections: for understanding various infections that be caught through unprotected sexual contact.

After the session, participants asked lots of questions, some were asking in front of everyone and some preferred to ask separately through one-to-one interactions. It was seen that the participants have taken this information positively as they looked confident while asking question and also were contented with the information. They also shared their experiences of when they first felt physical changes in their body and how they were clueless about it. During the discussions it came out that it is very important to have conversation around these topics because lack of proper information on sexual knowledge, body changes, emotions leads to distractions of adolescents and in the process they sometimes makes bad choices which makes them more vulnerable.