OVER 200 persons from Negril and surrounding communities recently benefited from a “Community Safer Sex Shack” erected at the Value Master Plaza in the Westmoreland resort town.

Population Services International/Jamaica (PSI/J) along with partners Sandals, Beaches and Grand Pineapple Negril and the Jamaica Family Planning Association erected the safer sex booth in a bid to educate residents about reproductive health and protection against sexually transmitted infections (STIs). The booth featured free blood pressure checks, counselling, testing for HIV and other STIs, pregnancy tests, as well as reproductive and health services. Participants also benefited from giveaways as well as special contraceptive sampling and bundles.

“We are grateful to our partners for collaborating on such a well-needed initiative which reached many persons who would not usually have had ready access to these services,” said Ruth Chisholm, country programme manager for PSI/J. She added that this was the third occasion on which a Community Safer Sex Shack was set up in the resort town to encourage persons to embrace positive thinking and behaviour change when making decisions about their sexual and reproductive health.

“We have seen evidence that health services and products are most effective when they are accompanied by robust communication and distribution efforts that help to ensure wide acceptance and proper use and so this initiative was done with that principle in mind,” commented Chisholm.

Regional public relations manager for Sandals Resorts in Negril Kendra Johnson noted that this initiative was the start of a mutually beneficial partnership and was also endorsed by the Negril Chamber of Commerce and the Negril Chapter of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association, while other partners included CariMed and the Family Medical Clinic.

“Sandals Resorts International is always looking at sustainable ways to give back to the community and the collaboration with PSI/J is one way in which we saw we could lend meaningful support to encouraging positive sexual and reproductive health behaviours,” she said.

Up to 2010, there were worrying trends in Jamaica, including increased teen pregnancies among adolescents, multiple concurrent partners and inconsistent condom use. Additionally, women and girls were increasingly infected by HIV, and girls in the 15-19 age group were three times more likely to be infected with the virus than young men in the same age group. Stigma and discrimination prevents persons from accessing relevant health information and services.

PSI, a global health organisation dedicated to improving the health of people in the developing world, focuses on serious challenges, including a lack of family planning, HIV and AIDS, and barriers to maternal health. The local arm (PSJ) works with the public and private sectors to create health solutions that are built to last — such as special safer-sex booths and pop-up clinics in high risk areas, offering various testing and health services.

Sandals Resorts International has, over the years, lent monetary and in-kind support to several initiatives across the Caribbean that have been aimed at strengthening the health sector, through the upgrade of health centres, pharmacies and hospitals, provision of free eye and dental care, as well as treatment of paediatric diseases.