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A couple affected by the floods in Sri Lanka

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How attending workshops can help equip parents with the tools to talk about sex

Sex can be a very taboo subject, this is why we provide culturally sensitive workshops for parents to enable them to talk to their children about sex and sexuality.

Prijani and Chandana were forced to flee their home during the floods of May 2017 in Sri Lanka. They didn’t have time to take any belongings, so ran with their two small children. After the floods, they attended gender based violence training run by Family Planning Association of Sri Lanka, where they learned about child protection needs.

“We weren’t informed that the floods were going to come, but when the water reached our knee level we knew we have to move. We just took the kids and left” says Prijani.

“I was worried about two things: my kids, as we were staying at a camp in the school, and losing my house. I allowed a workshop run by Family Planning Association of Sri Lanka to be held in my garden as we had the most room. There I learnt a lot about child protection the teacher gave a lot of examples of child protection and what can go wrong. We learned about sexual violence that kids face from older people”.

“One day, I saw my son masturbating and I asked him how he knew how to do that, and that’s when he told me about what happened at school. The workshop taught me to look out for these signs” says Chandana, who is planning to report the incident to the school when it re-opens. “I never thought the issue was that bad. Now, we are a lot more attentive to our kids”.

 

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when

country

Sri Lanka

Subject

Comprehensive Sex Education

Related Member Association

Family Planning Association of Sri Lanka