Finding common ground

Ballooning up: Thai teen students putting balloons under their shirts so they look pregnant during a sex education programme at Panyapiwat school in Bangkok. — AFP Below: Sex education in some American high schools is evolving beyond pregnancy and disease prevention to include lessons aimed at curbing sexual assaults. — AP

SECULAR NGOs and faith-based organisations (FBOs) are often at loggerheads when it comes to family planning issues.

Some NGOs blame FBOs for hampering work that needs to be done to prevent unwanted pregnancies and protect young people from sexually transmitted diseases. And the FBOs in turn feel that secular organisations are not sensitive to community mores.