In the battle against sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies, education is the most potent weapon. Planned Parenthood of Rhode Island (PPRI) is trying to combat ignorance with a Teen Health Center that opened in Pawtucket on June 5. Realizing that teens are more willing to discuss sexual issues with fellow youths than their parents or elders, Miriam Inocencio, PPRI's president and CEO, structured the teen center after a peer education project in New York called "the door."

Planned Parenthood's Providence office, which offers an information program for teens one afternoon a week, has been operating at a maximum for the past few years. According to Pamela Elizabeth, PPRI's director of education, the aim of the new teen walk-in facility in Pawtucket is to expand the agency's reach. The new center is "directly on the bus line," Elizabeth says. "It's also right behind Pawtucket High School. We want to make information as accessible as possible."

The teen center teaches communication and negotiation skills, as part of an effort to raise the self-esteem of youths, while also offering education about abstinence and healthy decision-making, sexually transmitted infections, preventing unintended pregnancies, and safe sex practices and contraceptive methods. As Elizabeth says, "We want to address the whole teen -- not just their reproductive lives."

Peer educators, many of whom are bilingual, run the center with PPRI's educational staff. According to bilingual services coordinator Janet Villanueva-Williams, "There is not much communication about sex in the Latino community . . . some people even think that if you put a tampon in you are no longer a virgin!"

Natalie Coletti, a teenage volunteer, notes that sex is a "pretty touchy subject in any community. The new center is great just for getting the word out there." Teenagers are encouraged to come in with their parents, and the Teen Health Center is geared to facilitate cross-generational discussion.

Not everyone supports such dialogue, though, as evidenced by the several protesters who turned out for the opening of the Pawtucket site. Pickets can also be found on a regular basis at PPRI's Providence office, sometimes clad with gigantic photographs of aborted fetuses.

Asked if the protesters deter visitors from the Pawtucket site -- which received only one visitor on its opening night -- Inocencio says, "It's hard to tell." Elizabeth added, "Look how hard it was for you to walk through them, and you are only a reporter . . . All we want to do is provide information to dispel myths. We are here to give teens a sense of being respected and welcome."

Issue Date: July 12 - 18, 2002