The role of Planned Parenthood Aruba remains important to continue the conversation and to provide information, but at the end of the day, itās up to the person receiving the information. For the foundation, it is important that the community has the tools and information regarding themes and various aspects of sexual and reproductive health. The foundation is focusing greatly on education for the following period, and from 2023 onwards, to continue creating a good connection and understanding with its clients.
The vision of Planned Parenthood Aruba when they began their rebranding was to focus more on having a connection and trust with their clients, something they consider very important. Planned Parenthood isnāt there to impose what you can or cannot do. Oftentimes, the local community views the foundation ā which works on prevention and safety ā as a sexual act; but sexuality is much wider subject, according to the foundationās director.
However, if you want to confront merely the subject of the sexual act, it is something natural in the life of each human being, a fundamental right. It must be something pleasurable, and in order for it to be this way for each person, the foundation wants to help and inform each client so that they can avoid risks and negative consequences. āFor it to remain as a pleasurable act for you, if you want to focus only on the sexual act ā because sexuality is much wider and for us it is important to continue educating and being a support for our clientsā, director of Planned Parenthood Aruba, Evelyn Ras-Yarzagaray said.
The problem with ānudesā
Because of their focus on education, their visits at school maintains the objective of being interactive. Nowadays, you cannot simply say, for example, ādonāt send a naked video or picture to anyoneā, the director explains, because this is up to each person. However, it is good to highlight the consequences on the short and long terms.
This is the role that the community must understand belongs to Planned Parenthood, that indeed they are in charge of giving assistance to each school primarily. When a situation presents, for example of a teenager who is sending naked pictures, the school can contact the foundation so that they can intervene and help. āBut sometimes you need to see why the person is making certain decisions. There are times it goes deeper. So itās about creating a relationship with the person in question, contact and creating trust in order to continue providing guidance and explaining the associated risks with the action.ā
There are things that people tend to forget, but in the past it was the case that there are these types of video or images that until today are still damaging people in the local community. This is highlighted as an example for teenagers to know that in the future, in wherever field they want to become active, they need to be aware on how damaging something like this can be in such a small community.
The director explains that during the month of September, every year since 2007, the United Nations and the World Health Organization proclaimed this month as a month of awareness for sexual and reproductive health. Planned Parenthood Aruba is joining this movement and focusing on awareness in the context of work and projects they have carried out since 2007.
This is an opportunity to focus not only on the products they offer, but also on the aspect of sexual health as a whole, including hygiene and other aspects which, while covered in school, can benefit from a stronger connection to the client in order to improve the guidance giving to them.
āFor them to give us feedback of the products that they use and the services they are receiving, and this not only for the clients one-on-one. We go back to the schools as well to see how we can improve the work we are doing for the community, to improve the quality also of sexual and reproductive healthā, Mrs. Ras-Yarzagaray commented.
Since 1970, Planned Parenthood Aruba is focused exclusively on prevention. As it is known, the birth control that they offer is focused not only on avoiding unwanted pregnancies, but also sexually transmitted diseases, which are also seeing an uptick. During this year, the foundation said it is focusing more on education, to teach more in depth regarding sexual health, and to give more attention on how the body is put together as well as the emotional aspects, to see how they are going to put together an education package for the schools, for example. This way, when the services of Planned Parenthood Aruba are required, teenagers and adults already know what the foundation is all about.
