11 May 2016

Moshupa Senior Secondary School hosted a pregnancy awareness pageant over the weekend.

The event was aimed at raising awareness about teenage pregnancy and encouraging students to abstain from sex.

Contestants were primary and secondary school girls. 

During an interview, Moshupa senior guidance and counselling teacher, Mr Olefile Sebetlela said they decided to come up with the pageant after realising that most students were dropping out of school due to pregnancy. 

“We also realised that the problem has its roots even below the senior school level as some students are enrolled into Moshupa senior already pregnant. This bcame a concern as it indicated that students are not only indulging in sex, but unprotected sex and that is the reason we included even primary school students in the pageant,” he said.He said the pageant was done to raise awareness and teach students to abstain from sexual activities.

Sebetlela said it was vital for students at primary school level to be exposed to sex education so that they could be able to purposefully participate in discussions concerning the subject. 

He said a week prior to the pageant, they took all the participants for a two-day workshop on teenage pregnancy and sex.

He said this was one of the efforts to try and break the sex education taboo where kids could not engage freely on the topic.

He said research had shown that men in the community were the ones that engaged in sexual activities with students as the reported pregnancy cases hardly implicated the male students, hence taking the operation to the community.

He stated that one of the models they would use to take the operation to the community would be by having Pitso Ya Borre to come and discuss such issues with men. 

He said most of the times, older men are the ones sleeping with the students as they entice them with expensive gifts and money. 

 Mpho Nkweyakgosi from Kgabophuthi Primary School was crowned Ms Moshupa Primary Schools and Kopana Mokgadi from Moshupa senior was crowned Ms Moshupa Secondary Schools.ENDS