Ms Tashanta Brooks
Ms Millicent Freeman, Director of Outreach and Public Training at the Bureau of STDs Control and Prevention in Queens, New York, was in Anguilla on Monday this week to meet with Counsellors at the Albena Lake Hodge Comprehensive School.
Ms Freeman, who is holidaying in St Maarten, came over to Anguilla for the day. She told The Anguillian in part: “I came to bring information to counsellors and teachers on how to interrupt the spread of sexually-transmitted infections, including HIV, using an evidence-based curriculum that we use at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
“In New York City we have a school-based programme where we conduct health education in the classroom with students from 13 years – and up to the age when they leave high school.
“Since I am visiting Anguilla, I wanted to talk about sexually-transmitted diseases even on a one-to-one counselling basis. You must have the knowledge to basically understand how the infections happen; how the symptoms look; what the timeframe is between exposure and the manifestation of one of the symptoms; [and] what treatments are available from the centres of disease control or heath organisations. Then we must look at how the information is to be funnelled down to the level of the person who needs to hear it. This is not just for the high school or junior high school student, but anyone who is sexually active and is potentially at risk of acquiring HIV or another STD.”
Two of the persons with whom she met were Dr Samuel Daniel and Ms Tashanta Brooks, Counsellors at the Albena Lake-Hodge Comprehensive School. Dr Daniel commented on the information about which Ms Freeman spoke. “It is extremely important,” he stated. “We are living at a time when so many of our children are promiscuous…so this sort of information is invaluable. You can never have too much of it.”
