Sexual and Reproductive Health

Standing Committee on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights including HIV&AIDS (SCORA)

OUR VISION

SCORA’s vision is to contribute towards a society where harmony in the diversity of individuals coming from various backgrounds in terms of sexuality, gender identity and sexual and reproductive health and rights is encouraged equally and without discrimination.

OUR MISSION

Our mission is to encourage members of society, particularly young adults, to broaden their knowledge and skills in sexual and reproductive health and rights. We strive to provide members with the tools for advocacy within the local community in a respectful manner, free from prejudice. We wish to increase the exposure of typically taboo topics, and for medical students, to raise awareness on how an individual’s sexual and reproductive health identity has links to their healthcare barriers and needs. Our goal is to fulfil SCORA’s vision through active workshops, campaigns and collaborations with other standing committees of AMSAHK as well as local external organisations.

Projects

Walking with Women: Empowering Young Women in Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters

The workshop was a collaboration between SCORA and the non-profit organisation known as Teen’s Key. Teen’s Key is an organisation based in Hong Kong that aims to support young women who are often undergoing crises such as but not limited to adolescent pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Thus, this workshop primarily had a target audience of women and the aim to empower them to take control over their circumstances.

3 guest speakers were invited to talk about such matters, speakers being Dr. Brian, Cheng Kim Fung, Ms. Carey Choi, and Dr. Tam Ching Ting. They talked about public health issues regarding STDs, how they can seek help through both governmental and non-governmental organisations and the clinical relevance of these issues, respectively. We were able to discuss a range of myths of sexual reproductive health problems, sexual health issues that are especially prevalent among women, and the promotion of early treatment and barriers of health seeking.

This was the first time AMSAHK has collaborated with Teen’s Key, but we hope to continue expanding our collaboration and hosting similar workshops in the future.

The inspiration for this event was to help alleviate the stigma and taboo associated with discussions on sexual and reproductive health matters. We hoped to be able to additionally inform others as we found that many high schools do not go into sexual education very thoroughly.

SCORA created the powerpoint slides for the events as well as sourced Dr. Tam Ching Ting as one of the guest speakers. We were also in charge of marketing the event by creating a poster in collaboration with Teen’s Key. We also planned the structure and timing of the event, including an ice breaker game and asking common questions about sexual and reproductive health matters. We also helped translate content to English.

Angels of the Asia-Pacific

The workshop was held in collaboration with 7 Asia-Pacific region NMO, including Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Australia, India, Kyrgyzstan and Pakistan. This workshop was held hoping to allow more people to understand the SRHR issues specific to each country in the Asia-Pacific.

Our workshop included a presentation on Hong Kong, how our population growth, culture and realistic circumstances has led to the increase in demand for abortion, laws regarding abortion and what we can do to tackle the problem as a standing committee. The workshop was split into three main sessions, with a breakout session in between every main session. We first had presentations from Australia and Singapore on LGBTQIA+ issues such as discriminatory practices and laws. The sharings were then followed by a breakout room session where participants created slogans for advocacy of LGBTQIA+ equality. We then presented on abortion, followed by India, Philippines and Kyrgyzstan which also shed light on the same issue with different perspectives. We also had discussions on whether abortion should be allowed and gained insights on how we would set laws regarding abortion. Thailand then shared her views on the sex industry and the right of equal protection in the industry. Finally Pakistan shared about HIV/AIDS and other STIs and we ended the workshop by reflecting on which topic we thought required the most attention from our local community.

@SCORAMSAHK Instagram Campaign

Even in this day and age, topics related to sexual and reproductive health are still considered taboo in Hong Kong. Our Instagram campaign started last year and starting from this year we opened a new account independent from the AMSAHK Instagram account, so that we can post more information about these topics more frequently on a specialised platform. Our campaign was targeted towards medical students as well as other followers of the Instagram account. Each month, we posted a long post and a short post. Long posts span two separate posts, covering SCORA topics we believed to be relevant in Hong Kong, such as menstrual hygiene, AIDS, HPV vaccination, contraception, teen pregnancy, etc. Short posts are less informative in nature, but introduce new ways to know more about these topics, such as a bingo sheet and a book recommendation. We also posted reviews on SCORA events so that our followers can know more about the content of the activities. Prior to events, we post links to application forms on Instagram stories.