Deb Levine - my hero to shadow

I took a look through the different people on the Global Social Benefit Incubator and the Pop Tech Social Innovators links, and I have
to say I found a few people who definitely caught my attention, especially Nik
Kafka and Paula Kahumbu. However when it came down to actually
making a decision, I ended up deciding upon Deb Levine of Isis-Inc.org http://www.isis-inc.org/index.php (Internet Sexuality Information Services).

At first I didn't think her line of innovation was interesting
to me, and then I took a look at the environment I am currently living in.
Being a member of Student Housing Services in a residence building, I am
surrounded by roughly 1,600 first year students, most of them encountering
their first time away from home, new experiences, new people and in some cases
their 'first times'. Now being in a developed nation, most of us (my age or
younger anyways) have had some form of sexual health education, but inevitably
we're still seeing high rates of STI's, teen pregnancy, abortion. And this
isn't even including populations where information isn't readily available.

In her Pop tech presentation, Deb presented some statistics
namely, 1 in 2 young people will contract an STI by the age of 25. This
statistic hit home, especially when I looked around my residence community.
That’s every other student that I live with. Definitely a scary thought. Also
through watching her presentation, I have to say that I agree with what she
presented. I see many students who are rather embarrassed to ask us for condoms
(an aspect of our job, to provide them upon request) and it makes me wonder how
they deal with obtaining more information regarding other sexual health issues.

Deb’s projects connected to ISIS help to create an anonymous, confidential environment for people to bring about their
questions and concerns about sexual health and aims at reducing the spread of
STI’s. And how does she do this? Through
the web, text messages, whatever social media may be needed. She states that “There’s
something about that screen, that distance it creates that allows for intimate
conversation about sensitive topics” (a rough paraphrase) and I couldn’t agree
more. Many time have I opened up to someone I knew online, because there was
this concept of anonymity.

The ISIS program works off of the “Right People, Right Message, Right Channel”. It focuses on finding the right people
who need the help, sending across the right types of information and using the
right method of conveying this information ranging from anonymous e-cards to
let a partner know they may have been exposed Chlamydia and where to get
tested, or text messages to get across small bits of information.

I personally would never have thought to tackle such an important issue in this manner, and I feel that it was pure
genius, especially in a world where we are locked up in cyber space any more.
This is why I have chosen to shadow Deb as my hero. She has provided me with an
insightful way to tackle very real issues that hit close to home to me, and
uses a method of communication that many young people are familiar and
comfortable with. I hope to see the spread of ISIS, and perhaps can suggest it
to my students when they come to me with questions that perhaps I cannot
answer.

I intend of following the ISIS progress, through bookmarking Deb’s blog http://phalligator.blogspot.com/,
as well as adding her Mothers United for Sex Education in School: MUSES
Facebook group to my Facebook account. Although I’m not literally a mother
myself, I am a bit of a den mother, and definitely feel that we need sex
education in the classroom to increase awareness an aid in prevention.

I hope to hear many more good things out of this program, and will strive to endorse it.