Straight Talk Newspaper

Straight Talk Club members discuss issues raised in the newspaper, hear guest speakers, visit health centres and the disabled and engage in community service projects. Each month, KAPC produces 360,000 copies of Straight Talk. About 300,000 are inserted in issues of The Nation, Kenya’s largest daily news paper. KAPC distributes the remaining 60,000 copies through schools, youth-serving organisations and partners. Sexual abuse, pregnancy, homosexuality, masturbation and gender inequality are frequent topics examined through articles, columns, question-and-answer interviews and cartoons.

Straight Talk Clubs aim to help improve adolescent health by fostering peer-to-peer discussion of HIV, by helping youth share opinions and experiences confronting high-risk situations, and by helping them develop behaviour-negotiation skills through role-playing activities.

To reinforce the messages in the Straight Talk newspaper and the clubs, a 30-minute Saturday morning radio programme, a website and educational videos were produced.

Youth, HIV/AIDS, Sexual health.

Straight Talk programmes aim to increase dialogue between adolescents and teachers, and between adolescents and their parents. One edition challenged some schools’ practice of putting small amounts of petroleum in student lunches, believing it will hinder their sexual urges. Another challenged some school matrons’ practice of insisting at the start of each semester that girls raise their blouses so the matrons can “tweak” their nipples in the mistaken belief that this will reveal whether a girl has become pregnant over the summer.

Some clubs have addressed the dilemma of Muslim teenage girls engaging in unprotected anal sex to avoid jeopardising the virginity needed for marriage. Others have addressed “widow cleansing,” a deeply rooted cultural practice that requires a new widow to have sex with other men during her grieving period to free her of her husband’s ghost, enabling her to find happiness with another husband.

The paper receives some 500 letters each month from across Kenya, many to “Dr. Straight,” a physician who advises KAPC, serves on the Straight Talk editorial board, and answers questions in print. The paper also features a “Please Advise” column in which adolescents respond to questions from their peers.