UNESCO in partnership with World Council churches, Save the Children, UNFPA and Inerela organized a regional training of trainers for Religious Leaders on CSE and SRHR services for adolescents and young people from the 25th June to the 27th of June in Johannesburg South Africa. The training was attended by Religious leaders from the SADC region from different religious affiliations including Christian, Islam and Bahai faith.
There were moving and transformative sessions which dove into topics like comprehensive sexuality education, teen pregnancy, harmful and positive sexual behavior for adolescents and menstrual health management. One of the overarching themes of the training was “meeting young people where they are” and the importance of creating an environment in communities of inclusivity and trust. The religious leaders were able to give insight into the ways they currently engage adolescents in their communities on CSE and SRHR which gave good context that will be used on the evaluation of the content on the tool kit that has been developed for religious leaders on CSE and ASRH.