| For many Nigerian adolescents, Valentine's Day is perceived as a love jamboree - a day for alcohol, fun and carefree sex. For some young people, it is a day to ensure that one has a lover. Some young people especially tend to have it as a day out to indulge in sexual activities that may have negative effects on their health and development.
Many adolescents like to share this period with peers and loved ones. Hence, there is a need for them to understand the purpose of the celebration, know the common risky behaviours young people engage in at this period and learn how to avoid such.
Because of this, AHI celebrated the event with the theme "Friendship, Love and Dating: What you need to know". The programme was aimed at helping young people understand the true meaning of friendship and love.
The objectives of the programme were:
- To help young people build friendship skills and adopt behaviours that enhance loving relationships
- To increase young people's understanding of friendship and relationships
- To help young people understand the myths and facts about love
Highlights of the programme
To achieve the objectives of the programme, lectures were given on the theme of the event, Friendship, Love and Dating. The following were discussed:
- History of Valentine's Day
- Meaning, basis and importance of friendship
- Definition, qualities of love and ways of expressing love
- Meaning of date and important things to know about dating
It was made clear to participants that sex is not a way of expressing love. Young people need to avoid risky behaviours as these could have negative effects on their health and future. Likewise, adolescence is a time to develop friendship skills as this would help in future relationships.
To give young people opportunity to display and build talents and skills, young people were invited to make presentations such as song, dance and comedy. Some of the presenters were Mfon Francis (former student of Wesley Girls Senior Secondary School), "The climax" (a group led by a regular old facility user now a student of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife) and "Tripple G" ( a group of in-school adolescents ). Other presenters were students from secondary schools present at the occasion.
Another main activity carried out was poetry competition. Six (6) young people participated in the competition. They all recited their poems at the event. The students who came 1 st , 2nd, and 3 rd were given prizes.
One other interesting segment of the programme was cutting of the Valentine's cake.
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