I first wrote this in 2002, and nothing seems to have changed since then.

As a typical American in any state, you are probably so enmeshed, willingly and unwillingly, in such a multitude of activities that you may as well be caught in a spider's web. Just try to make an independent move without setting off eight alarms at once.

Yet a number of unwelcome events can befall you when you have not learned to say No. To illustrate this, a mortuary once ran a public service announcement in the newspaper. It was entitled "Ten Ways to an Early Grave."

As I recall, and my memory is not perfect, these ways include:

1. Accept all invitations to meetings, banquets, committees, and all requests for volunteer or family projects.
2. Scramble up that career ladder so you get there ahead of everyone else, even if it means 10-12 hours of sitting behind a desk every day.
3. Extend that workday by commuting ridiculous distances.
4. Regard fishing, golf, bowling, tennis, as a waste of time and money.
5. Consider gardening and housework to be menial chores that are beneath you (unless you've damaged your back from stress, accidents or other frantic pursuits and simply cannot do them).
6. Fight daily to keep up with the Everhards, who are trying to keep up with the Smiths, who are trying to keep up with the Lincolns.
7. Flaunt the possessions you have, instead of maintaining a low profile.
8. Believe it's poor policy to take all the vacation allowed you.
9. Delegate some other family member to attend your children's school events.
10. Refuse to become involved in anything that helps other people but doesn't directly benefit you financially.

Even if death does not arrive in response to your attitude toward life, other severe, often life-threatening health problems can develop from allowing yourself to take on too much, or to do too many of the wrong things.

It is highly desirable to be a charitable individual who cares about your family, your neighbors, your friends, your community, your religious activities, and about humanity in general. It is so true that no man or woman is an island. As events of the past year have shown, this kind of caring brings out the very best in all of us.

But it is quite another matter to be run ragged every day because you've always allowed yourself to be taken advantage of, and other people know that by now.

© 2002 Shirley Ann Parker Reprinted from The Corner Desk, March 2002

Shirley Ann Parker is a full-time technical writer and author. She was born and raised in England, but has lived in the US since the '60s. She looks at life here through the eyes of an immigrant/citizen, who has lived in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, Utah, and California. Read more of her writing at http://www.shirleyannparker.com or learn about her other artistic interests at http://www.cafeshops.com/topazcoveplus Her short story collection, Discoveries: A Journey Through Life is available from http://www.buybooksontheweb.com The often humorous stories about the joys and frustrations of family and friendship are suitable for all ages. Some of them introduce magical realism.

Mohammad Khairul Alam

AIDS Researcher

24/3 M. C. Roy Lane

Dhaka-1211, Bangladesh

rainbowngo@gmail.com

Tell: 880-2-8628908

Mobile: 01711344997

Worldwide, rates of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) among adolescents are soaring: one-third of the 340 million new STDs/STI each year occur in people under 25 years of age. Each yearly, more than one in every 20 adolescents contracts a curable STDs/STI. More than half of all new HIV infections occur in people between the ages of 15 to 24 years. The sexual health needs for adolescent girls are generally overlooked, Stigma and vulnerability affects particular groups of men as well as women. Although men generally have more access to information on sexual issues than women, and more decision-making power regarding sexual behavior, Access to information, and treatment for other infections which facilitate the transmission of HIV and onset of AIDS, including STDs/STI, are limited because of weak public health services, health workers’ negative attitudes, and the high cost of treatment.

Adolescent girls in poor families in Bangladesh, most of whom are out-of-school, comprise a sizeable proportion of the female population. They are especially vulnerable and neglected, coming under the purview of government programs only once they are pregnant- the majority are out of school and are neither serviced by educational or school health programs nor by child health, reproductive health and nutrition services. At the family level too, girls are highly vulnerable: male child preference is pervasive, resulting in gender inequality in health care, food intake, school attendance and labor contribution of children, from an early age.

In generally, Bangladeshi women or girls are basically getting sexual experience through marriage and for the most part, premarital sexual contact is mostly confined to their future husband or lovers. Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation found, sexual behaviour among Bangladeshi women is changing. Adolescent girls may not remain in the traditional sexual confinement of the previous generations and casual sex among them is on the rise. This may encourage AIDS to acquire alarming proportions in Bangladesh.

A new strategy apply some reprobate people a very recent that several college or university girls are being enrolled into providing privately sex works (Residential sex work) through blackmail methods often by taking their nude photograph or short movie by digital hidden mini camera, when they engage consensual sex work or close entertainment with their lovers or friend and threatening them that the photos or movies would be published in poster form if they do not agree to their terms and conditions.

There are also several groups of adolescent people with increased vulnerability for HIV transmission because of their social status. Among the growing number of street children or street girls, the risk of infection is exacerbated due to a high prevalence of risky sexual behaviors and injecting drug use. Although the growing public awareness of the existence of the HIV crisis, the actual knowledge of the problem is superficial, particularly among adolescents. Their understanding of the modes of transmission and prevention methods is incomplete and often misconstrued. Recent research in North region’s three districts in Bangladesh by Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation & L.R.B Foundation has shown that while provide HIV information with discussions of safe-sex and gender issue may be discouraged for young girls and women because of the ordinary belief that to inform them about sexuality and safe-sex is to encourage sexual activity. Even though that for fear of encouraging sexual activity, mothers deny imperative information about sexual-live, safe sex, reproductive health information from their daughters.

HIV/AIDS is a deadly disease, but also everybody can safe from it. Everyone can protect from HIV infection by making smart decisions about sex and drugs. Some things are very risky to do, some less risky, and some are 100 percent safe. Obviously, the surest way to avoid the virus is to choose not to have sexual intercourse - vaginal, oral, or anal - and not to use illegal drugs. By the way, what is therefore urgently required for adolescents are programs/ activities which help deal with they're own well-being, their health, their bodies and their sexual lives. This is particularly important in light of the HIV pandemic and in light of growing evidence of both ignorance in sexual matters on the one hand and considerable sexual activity among young unmarried people in the other.

Reference: UNAIDS, World Bank, STD network

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