We started running radio ads in Senegal this weekend telling young people about our SMS question-and-answer service on sexual health, growing up, relationships... that sort of thing. The idea is to give people an anonymous way to ask the questions they don't feel comfortable asking any other way -- and then give them accurate answers and guidance on how to make good choices in their life.

We had no idea how the response would be. We had big hopes, but, to be fair, nothing like this has been done in Senegal before, so there was really no telling.

Turns out, Senegal's got questions. Lots of serious, important questions. Since Monday we've been getting about 1,000 questions a day via SMS -- our counselors in Dakar are furiously answering them all.

Here's just a few I pulled out at random, so you can see what sort of things young people want to know about (loose translations in English as well):

  • je voudré savoir ce ki fé le rtar d régl fille 21 an
    I'd like to know what causes menstruation to be late - 21 y/o girl
  • est ce que la masturbation a des effets négatifs.26ans masculin
    does masturbation have negative effects? 26 y/o male
  • es que vous parlez seulment du sida par ce mw jai d autr questions
    do you just talk about AIDS because I have other questions (for the record, yes, we respond to all questions about reproductive health)
  • bjr j avé fé le dépo cela fé deux ans j lé arété mé lé régles n viennent pa jé trente cinq ans
    hi, I was on depo (birth control). i stopped it two years ago but my menstrual cycle has not come back. I'm 35 years old.
  • ma fame vien davoir 1 enfan ke doi fair pr sorianté lé naissance pr au moin 5 ans ou plus
    my wife just had a child. what do I do to not have another baby for at least 5 years?

>> Here's more about our SMS project in Senegal, known as InfoAdo.

>> And here's the site for young people in Senegal -- www.infoado.org.

>> You can follow InfoAdo on Facebook here, too.

blog comments powered by Disqus