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WATSONVILLE, California, March 19, 2003 — It doesn't have sales, it targets teens and parents, it works in English, Spanish and Spanglish and it operates not in a developing country, but minutes from Silicon Valley, the high tech center of the most developed country on earth. PSI/Central Coast is not your typical PSI social marketing project. At first glance, relatively prosperous and agriculturally-based Watsonville, a city of 48,000 established 135 years ago amidst the lush Pajaro Valley (now prime strawberry-producing country) 95 miles south of San Francisco, does not seem an obvious site for a PSI social marketing project. But it begins to make sense when you see that many of the adolescent girls walking through the picturesque central plaza within eyeshot of the PSI offices are pushing strollers and that about 75% of the population is Latino, mostly of Mexican origin. It makes even more sense when you hear that Watsonville has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the U.S. "Teen pregnancy is nothing new here," says Alejandra Vaca, journalist for ShoutOut, PSI/Central Coast's teen newspaper. "It's so common to see a high school girl with a baby stroller walking by and trying to get to class. It's sad but it's the truth." U.S. Programs Director John Beleutz, says the Central Coast program, which is starting the fourth year of funding from the Packard Foundation, is all about sexual risk reduction - teen pregnancy and HIV/AIDS prevention. "Youth are at the heart of the Central Coast project," says Beleutz. "This project doesn't just give lip service to youth involvement, it delivers." Nan Lewicky, with years of experience implementing health communication programs in Latin America and Africa, is the project manager. Christy Kieffer, an eighth generation Californian with substantial experience coordinating local and state public education campaigns, is assistant project manager. And, most importantly, the program is driven by a group of around 20 enthusiastic and committed local teens. On a beautiful spring afternoon in March, the office was abuzz with the activity of staff and teens gathering to put out the eighth issue of ShoutOut, a free quarterly newspaper with a circulation of 10,000 written by and for teens to promote better communication about sexuality and other issues of interest to youth. Most of the articles are written in English but several are in Spanish and some in a mixture known as Spanglish, which several of the teens have grown up speaking. "We print reality," says Cristal Juarez, another ShoutOut journalist. "We write about what's really going on in young peoples' lives." In December, ShoutOut was honored by the Watsonville City Council for breaking new barriers in student journalism. Beyond ShoutOut, the PSI/Central Coast project has four major components: Community Mobilization: Mobilizing community members, especially youth, to become involved in reproductive health issues is key to the project's success. A youth forum held in 2001 resulted in a group of dedicated student volunteers that assist with project design, recruitment and implementation of the project. "Strong youth involvement in our project helps the relatively conservative community accept the importance of bringing sexuality topics to the forefront of public discussion," says Lewicky. Skills Building: PSI works with individuals and organizations experienced in serving the local Latino community to implement new skills-building activities for adolescents and caregivers. Involving youth in all aspects of the project (which helps teens improve their self-esteem) encourages their education and offers them a glimpse of future career options. PSI also reaches out to parents, recognizing that parental values play an important role in a child's decision about when to become sexually active. In 2002, 200 parents participated in the five-part Habla Conmigo (Talk to Me) workshops offered by PSI to help parents and caregivers develop skills for communicating with their children about sexuality. Contraceptive Access: The Central Coast project aims to improve a) contraceptive demand through expanded education, promotion and mass media and b) contraceptive supply by improving adolescent access to condoms and other contraceptives. PSI is already helping deliver improved youth access to emergency contraceptive pills and condoms through programs in Oregon and California. In the next couple of months, PSI will be placing 25 condom vending machines in Watsonville and Santa Cruz (to be expanded later to Monterey County and elsewhere). PSI already has letters from more than 30 community organizations supporting the vending machines and identifying the teen hangouts where the machines will be placed. Mass Media: PSI works with groups like Radio Bilingue, El Andar Magazine and local universities to develop professional, high quality educational and entertaining mass media campaigns. It has produced two notable successes. The first was a bilingual teen radio drama ("Amor y Deseo at Heartville High") aired on community radio last year which later won a national award from the National Federation of Community Broadcasters. The second was ShoutOut (described above). PSI has also developed a "Facilitators' Guide" to help teachers use ShoutOut in leading discussions and activities for teens on sexuality and other issues that affect them. Other interventions target teens and parents to promote the importance of adolescent-parent communication. Like other PSI projects, Central Coast has specific indicators to measure
its impact. A local research firm has been hired to carry out the monitoring
and evaluation component of the project. In order to measure its performance
against the indicators, PSI will be conducting a series of activities
including in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, a biannual survey
of sexual behavior and in-depth interviews with community representatives.
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