SU Center for Social Research hosts women health workshops

The Southern University HIV/AIDS Prevention Program for Young Women began hosting its second annual health education workshops geared toward the female student body on January 15th.
The program is a Center for Social Research project that is set up in sessions in which participants attend two sessions in order to complete the program.
Yesterday marked the completion of the first sessions held in the Alice Almira Boley Hall lobby. More than 20 young women attended and participated in the program.
“The incentives that we give the young women for participating are a $10 gift certificate at the end of each of the two sessions that they attend, refreshments and games. If they attend both sessions, at the end of the second session, they receive a SiHLE (Sisters Informing Healing Living Empowering) T-shirt,” explained Lacey Tollotson, the project director.
The program uses HIV/AIDS as a starting point for other major discussions about various STIs (sexually transmitted infections), healthy relationships and sexuality.
According to MayoClinic.com, it is estimated that 38.6 million people are living with HIV. Almost half of those cases are among young women between the ages of 15 and 24.
Many of the young women who attended the sessions said that they were happy they decided to go because they were presented with some information they were not aware of.
“In the first session we discussed the low and high risks of having any kind of sexual contact,” said Brittany Waller, a freshman accounting major from New Orleans.
Topics in the second session ranged from the correct ways to use condoms the right way to handling relationship issues with your partner.
“The HIV sessions are being funded by a federal grant. The idea originated from a team of us who wrote the grant which came as a result of Dr. Ella Kelley, who’s chair of the department of chemistry, seeing a grant announcement about this program and requesting that Dr. Alma Thorton, director of the Center for Social Research, assemble a team to write a grant proposal so Southern could get funding,” said Tollotson.
The goals for this program stretch far beyond simply explaining details of HIV and the various ways of preventing other STIs and there is much anticipation about the overall impact of this year’s program.
“I hope that they (the participants) would actually gain the knowledge and information that would carry them not only for today, but the rest of their lives; because this is knowledge that we all need to live a safe and healthier lifestyle,” said Shawanna Blaze who is serving as the assistant project coordinator.
The next sessions will begin on Feb. 19th at 3 p.m. in the Mocha Room in the Smith-Brown Memorial Union.