It's good to talk

 

I’m in the mood for dancing, romancing……

 

Well it’s not officially February 14^th and Valentines is well and truly over for those of us who care to celebrate or be celebrated on that day!

 

But here at MBC romance is very much in the air as Romance Academy II hits Plymouth! The hosts for this years exciting 10 week project are Steve and Sarah and last night the first session went off with a bang!

 

For those of you who think that we are setting up some dodgy dating agency let me enlighten you. During the summer of 2004, in light of the rising number of teenage pregnancies and STI’s amongst young people in Britain, the BBC piloted a project that would look to reverse this decline. As such ‘No sex please, we’re teenagers’ was broadcast over a number of weeks in the autumn on BBC2. This documentary followed the journey of 2 youth workers who worked for 5 months alongside 12 young people in what became known as the Romance Academy.

 

Romance Academy www.romanceacademy.org now runs projects across the UK to support young people in the area of sex and relationships through a programme of creating positive community, mentoring and challenge. It seeks to be a holistic sex education package in providing young people with both the information they need to make healthy choices and a ‘positive’ peer community within which they can explore their own identity, decision making, and the true value of sex within loving and committed relationships.

 

For me, the highlights from the first one we ran in 2007 are the weekend away and graduation ceremony which marks the end of the project. We wrap up the project as a celebration of the young people and their commitment to take seriously the choices they make around sex and relationships.

 

So, expect lots of updates! I for one am so passionate (!) about this whole area. I think that in so many ways we have done our young people a disservice in opening up the world of sex and the exploration of it with so little care or regard for the choices they make now and how these can impact their future.

 

When it comes to sex and relationships BT are right when they say ‘it’s good to talk’.