Condom Availability Programs

I grew up in a city that was once featured in “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” as the city that had the youngest living grandmother. My neighbor had three children before 11th grade and several of my middle-school friends became pregnant in the 7th or 8th grade. This was almost twenty years ago and things have changed a lot since then and not necessarily for the better. Children are learning about sex from an even earlier age and their lessons are not always from their parents. Friends, television and movies are what children often look to for lessons on sex, so you can only imagine the values they are confronted with. Some schools have risen up to the challenge of preventing teenage pregnancies and the spread of STDs by incorporating condom availability programs.

Coupled with sex education, these condom availability programs work by providing free condoms to students who are sexually active. The purpose is to curb pregnancy and prevent STDs by having teenagers consistently and properly use condoms.

This type of program, however, is not without its critics. There are many parents who feel that by offering students condoms, schools would be promoting promiscuity and sexual activity. Some community members believe that if you give a condom to a student who is not yet sexually active, they will feel inclined to have sex. In my opinion, nothing could be further from the truth. Handing a teenager who has never had sex a condom and thinking they will run out and start having sex immediately is like saying that handing a student a college textbook will cause them to drop out of middle school and start attending college. The World Health Organization (WHO) agrees with this stance and their research indicates that just because a child has access to sex education counseling and condoms does not mean they have an increased chance of initiating a sexual relationship.

Many teenagers spearhead the effort to get condom availability programs started at their schools.  They take their matter to the school nurse, the vice principal, the principal and even the school board to ensure all students get access to the counseling and condoms they may need. These teenagers arm themselves with facts about the risks of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Consider the following facts:

*Among Americans between the ages of 15 and 24. AIDS ranks 6th in deaths of those ages.
*Over one million teenaged girls get pregnant every single year in the United States.
*Three million teenagers get some type of STD each year.

With statistics of our youth this staggering, it is hard to imagine why condom availability programs would not be initiated at every school across the globe. It is a bit naïve to think that children in middle school have sexual relations at the bottom of their list of priorities. What parents and school officials must consider are the many factors that prevent a sexually active student from going out and buying a package of condoms, like fear, shame, lack of money and lack of transportation. With the availability of a condom program, these students would be able to visit their school nurse and get condoms issued at a moment’s notice, thereby helping with the risk of pregnancy and STDs.