Every 11th of July, World Population Day is celebrated.
It aims to highlight the urgency and importance of the population issues and find solutions to the said issues. This day was inspired by the “Five Billion Day,” which took place as the world population reached 5 billion on July 7, 1987.
This year, the goal is to call everyone’s attention to the concerns brought up at the 1994 International Conference on Population Development. It was at this conference that 179 governments agreed that reproductive health and gender equality play an important role in the pursuit of sustainable development.
Why should you care about it?
In 2018 alone, the world population already surpassed 7.5 billion. This is worrisome since overpopulation is said to impede development. As the population grows rapidly and gets out of hand, we are confronted with other pressing problems.
Such problems include:
- Quick depletion of natural resources
- Destruction of the environment
- Insufficient opportunities for individuals
Because of these disadvantages, it just makes sense that we do things to try to slow down population growth. The United Nations itself has already come up with the World Population Plan of Action.
What else can we do?
Some initiatives, including small ones, can make simple yet meaningful contributions to the fight against overpopulation.
The Philippine population breached 106,651,922 in 2018. On top of that, teenage pregnancy has also been among our biggest problems.
As cited by an article in Manila Bulletin, 2017 data from the National Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) from the Department of Health (DOH) show that some 9% of women aged 15 to 19 have already begun bearing a child.
These numbers have inspired us at Sinaya Cup to include a comprehensive sex education portion when conducting CUPacity Caravan.
With our revamped donation program, we do not just talk about menstrual hygiene and the benefits of using menstrual cups and give away free menstrual cups to participants; we also teach them about reproductive health, which covers the importance of practicing safe sex.
We teach about women empowerment, too, since we believe that by inspiring young women to take control over their own bodies and maximizing their potentials, they will be able to make the most of their lives and unleash more opportunities.
We hope that this way, they can make more informed decisions in their lives.
