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JACKSON, Miss. --Mississippi’s first Teenage Pregnancy Prevention Summit was held Thursday in Jackson. More than 200 teens showed up there to “Stomp out Teen Pregnancy.”
It’s a message he hope’s you’ll reinforce at home.
“I think its incumbent upon parents to say ‘do not do this, do not start down that path where you will become teen parents.’ They will listen,” he said. “Teenagers will listen to authority figures, but it needs to be the parent, the church, the school. All of us together.”
To get that message across at school, teen mom’s like Alisha Sifuentes, co-chair of the Governor’s Youth Council, are joining Bryant in urging their peers to wait. “Because it’s not worth sitting at home. You could be at a football game. You could be at a dance or the prom, instead of worrying about a baby,” said Sifuentes.
She thinks hearing the message form a peer will make a big impact. “I think if they had more people telling them not to do it, instead of adults, they understand it cause we are teenagers ourselves.
The summit was held at the Jackson Convention Complex, just after another conference wrapped up there that focused on abstinence plus sex education. The classes are taught in 71 Mississippi school districts, and can include information about contraception without giving demonstrations of how to use condoms.
Eighty-one school districts teach abstinence only. Three others teach a combination of them both.
