KIDS these days can be paid for consultancy work.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
At least by local community organisations such as Young People Ahead, headspace and Mount Isa Sexual Health (MISH) who paid teenagers $20 each on the weekend to discuss their views on sexual health.
About 40 teenagers aged between 15 to 19 attended up to three workshops held from Friday to Sunday.
MISH health promotion officer Joe Guta said the workshops were about understanding the target aged group’s views before script writing for awareness videos that focus on key sexual health messages.
“It’s about understanding slang, understanding where they hook up, sexual health knowledge and knowing right from wrong,” Mr Guta said.
“(We’re) extracting their information and filling in the gap through the movies.”
He acknowledged that some of the teenagers were awkward about the topic of conversation at first.
Yet they become more comfortable when they learned there were no wrong answers in the discussion, he said.
Half the teenagers in the workshops will also be acting in the videos which will then be shown in advertising at the Mount Isa Cinema, in health clinics and at local schools, Mr Guta said.
The awareness campaign was aimed at reducing sexually transmitted infections, increasing health check-ups, reducing the influence of drugs and alcohol in sexual behaviour, and supporting safe relationships.
The three workshops were completed at the PCYC and the Neighbourhood centre.
Mr Guta said the script writing will happen for the next two weeks, and filming will happen over four days from February 20.
headspace youth engagement officer Chris Doyle said he was happy with the number of the youth that signed up for the workshops.
“The important issues they are talking about needs to be spread through the young community in town, Indigenous and non-Indigenous awareness,” Mr Doyle said at the end of the third workshop. “They need to function in this community as young adults.”