This event will bring together people from across the state to celebrate the power of women. According to Unitewomen.org, this is the first time in American history that a simultaneous rally will be happenings in all 50 states!

Join us on Saturday, April 28th, from 11am-1pm at the South Carolina Statehouse

This week is National Women’s Health Week- a week of events that bring attention to how women can live longer, healthier lives.

The week is coordinated by the US Department of Health and Human Services’ Office on Women’s Health (OWH), and this year, has chosen to focus on the theme “It’s Your Time” in an effort to have women make their own health a priority.

The OWH suggests numerous steps to living a healthier lifestyle- some include:

• Regular visits to a health care professional for checkups and preventive screenings.
• Maintaining a nutritious diet.
• Getting a least 2 ½ hours of moderate physical activity, 1 ½ hours of vigorous physical activity, or both, each week.
• Pay attention to mental health, including getting enough sleep and managing stress.
• Avoid risky activities, such as smoking and not wearing a seatbelt.

Click here to read the Presidential Proclamation on National Women’s Health Week

Click here to read a statement from Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Women’s Health Week

Click here to read a statement from Surgeon General Dr. Regina M. Benjamin, on the Importance of Celebrating National Women’s Health Week and Empowering Women to Make Their Health a Top Priority

Tell Them has some extremely exciting news to share!

One lucky Tell Themmarcher will win this beautiful Slane & Slane 18K yellow gold diamond bee necklace, valued at $1800.

So how do you enter the contest? By getting your friends to sign up for the Virtual March!

How the contest works:

• First, invite your friends to register for the march.
• When they fill out the online form, they MUST put your name in the How did you hear about us? field.
• Every registration form that references your name provides you with one entry in the Jewelry Giveaway drawing. (So if five of your friends sign up and reference your name, you will have five entries to win.)

The Jewelry Giveaway drawing will take place March 24 at noon.

The winner will be announced here and on the Tell Them “From the Hive.”

We are SO excited about this giveaway. The necklace is BEAUTIFUL and features a bee, which is clearly our favorite symbol. This has been such an amazing ride, and we’d like to thank our marchers by rewarding their continued efforts. Please, RECRUIT YOUR FRIENDS and you’re entered to win!

MAKE SURE YOU TELL YOUR FRIENDS TO WRITE YOUR NAME IN THE “How Did You Hear About Us?” FIELD! If your name isn’t included, you won’t recieve an entry.

The Virtual March is almost here! Now, more than ever, it is important to personally recruit every last supporter out there. Invite your friends, your spouse, your partner, your family members, your coworkers. Just imagine how our numbers would swell if every marcher recruits at least two others. We can make a difference!

   Contest Rules:

To be eligible for the drawing, you must meet the following three criteria:

1. You must be at least 18 years of age.
2. You must be a South Carolina resident or a student enrolled in a South Carolina institution of higher learning (a valid government- or institution-issued photo ID will be required if you win)
3. You must have registered for the Virtual March to the Statehouse by computer via www.tellthemsc.org by no later than 11:59pm on March 23, 2010 in order to be eligible to participate this drawing.

Click here for complete giveaway rules

The statistics are astounding. More than 60% of high school seniors have had sexual intercourse.[1] 3 out of 10 young women will become pregnant at least once before they turn 20.[2] South Carolina has the 8^th highest AIDS case rate.[3] Young people ages 15-24 account for almost half of new STI cases in South Carolina. Births to teen mothers cost South Carolina taxpayers $156 million annually.

As the Tell Them website states, “As a community, we must acknowledge and address the fundamental issues that underlie these numbers. We can then work together to build capacity, on both local and statewide levels, to promote the healthy development of our young citizens.”

It is critical that South Carolina policymakers hear from us. They need to know where their constituents stand on the issues of unintended pregnancies and STIs. Without responsible public health polices, many of South Carolina’s “at-risk” populations – young women in our poorest and most rural counties- will not have access to medically accurate information and services.

Your representatives and senators need to hear from you. Join the Virtual March and Tell Them. Stand together with voters across the state and make a profound statement towards changing South Carolina.

[2] Carol J Pardun, K. L. (2005). Linking Exposure to Outcomes: Early Adolescents’ Consumption of Sexual Content in Six Media. Mass Communications & Society , 75-91. http://teenmedia.unc.edu/pdf/Mass.pdf 

[3] Center for Disease Control and Prevention. (2008, August). HIV/AIDS Among Women. Retrieved November 2009, from CDC Website: http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/women/resources/factsheets/pdf/women.pdf

Tell Them is extremely proud to introduce Tameika Isaac Devine of Columbia, South Carolina. After serving as Assistant Attorney General responsible for the prosecution of family violence and sexual assault cases, Tameika became a Founding Partner of Jabber & Isaac Law Firm. She is a member of the Executive Council of the SC Young Lawyers Division, Secretary for the South Carolina Black Lawyers Association, and is a former President of the Columbia Lawyers Association.

Tameika currently serves on the Columbia City Council. She is the youngest and first African-American female to do so. Watch her discuss the importance of communicating with elected officials and why all South Carolinians need to be involved with the political process.

South Carolina lawmakers can limit the amount of information and options that your doctor can say to you. This restricts the physician’s ability to share all the options and help patients make informed decisions about their health. Lawmakers can also mandate what a doctor must say, and the required information is not always science-based, and can be misleading. These laws, known as “Biased Counseling” laws, are a huge government intrusion into our healthcare system, limit the physician-patient relationship, and restrict the doctor from doing their job: providing the most appropriate and safest medical advice.

My medical history may not always remain confidential. South Carolina policymakers have been attempting to pass legislation that could create a situation where our medical records would be open to the public. Privacy is a basic human right, especially in health care. Without a guaranteed right of privacy in medical records, women across the state will not feel safe asking certain questions or making tough choices. They will question even seeking out medical attention. Protecting patient-provider confidentiality is a critical component of our healthcare system.

These issues and more are debated every session at the Statehouse. One reason why bills like these haven’t been successful is that the people of South Carolina have spoken up, and communicated with their representatives. They’ve sent word that we won’t stand for this massive intrusion into our healthcare. Stand with us now buy joining the Virtual March, and lend your voice to this fight.

Tell Them proudly presents Susan Romaine of Charleston, SC.  Susan is a Charleston-based artist and the owner of “Studio Romaine.” She was the Gibbs Artist in Residence from 2003-2004, and is a former investment professional. Susan has served as the Former Commissioner of the South Carolina Governor’s Commission on Women, as Board President of the Center for Women, Board President of Crisis Ministries, and is a current Board member of Planned Parenthood of South Carolina.

Watch as Susan talks about reproductive healthcare as a basic need of any healthcare system.

South Carolina’s HIV and AIDS rates place our state in the top 10 in the nation. This is not a top 10 ranking any state wants to boast about. To be specific, the number of AIDS cases rose nearly 300% in 10 years, to 14,163 cases in 2008. The CDC named South Carolina one of the Top Ten HIV “hot spots” in the country. Are we proud yet?

This epidemic is affecting our female population dramatically. In 2007, over 3,600 AIDS cases in South Carolina were reported in female patients. That same year, female patients made up over 33% of the new AIDS cases in our state. AIDS is the third leading cause of death of women in the US, and 81% of them are African American or Hispanic. This simply mustn’t be ignored or swept under the rug.

HIV and AIDS are real threats. By ignoring or denying the problem and avoiding talking about possible solutions, we are opening the doors for our children to expose themselves. Future generations need to be warned about the causes of HIV and how to protect themselves from HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. Comprehensive sex education in our schools will go a long way toward equipping them to do exactly that.

Tell Them is pleased and very proud to present Kay Chitty of Mt. Pleasant. Kay, a retired nurse, is a native South Carolinian, and recieved her Bachelor of Science in Nursing and Master of Nursing degrees from Emory University and her doctorate from the University of Tennessee. Kay is a former Dean of the Univeristy of Tennessee at Chattanooga Schoolof Nursing, and as authored numerous articles and chapters for professional journals and books in addition to a best selling nursing textbook, Professional Nursing: Concepts and Challenges, now in its 6^th edition. She was named one of “the fifty most influential people in Chattanooga during the 20^th Century.”  Kay is a member of the Medical University of South Carolina Foundation Board, and is married to her college sweetheart and they have two adult children and three grandchildren.

One of Kay’s favorite quotes is from Margaret Mead:

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Watch Kay as she speaks about the importance of speaking to young people about their options and how to protect themselves, and then join other committed, thoughtful citizens of South Carolina in the Virtual March.

The economic reality of unintended pregnancy is that this issues costs the taxpayers of South Carolina spend $156 million annually. And the numbers of teen and unintended pregnancies are rising. According to a study by the Guttmacher Institute, the pregnancy rate for girls between ages 15-19 has increased 3%. The Guttmacher Institute study goes on to say,

“The significant drop in teen pregnancy rates in the 1990s was overwhelmingly the result of more and better use of contraceptives among sexually active teens. However, this decline started to stall out in the early 2000s, at the same time that sex education programs aimed exclusively at promoting abstinence—and prohibited by law from discussing the benefits of contraception—became increasingly widespread and teens’ use of contraceptives declined.[1]”

This rise in the teen pregnancy numbers has many concerned. ““It’s very disturbing,” said Sarah Brown, of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. “We had over a decade of progress on a very serious problem, and I worry that we’ve ground to a halt. I think there are a lot of different factors at play, from less use of contraception, maybe because of less fear of AIDS, to our anything-goes culture, where it’s O.K. to get pregnant and have a baby in your teens.[2]”

Without a comprehensive reproductive education and increased access to clinics and services, the teen pregnancy rates in South Carolina will continue to rise, as will the cost to the taxpayer. We need to stand together, and demand better reproductive health policies for the future generations of South Carolinians.

The cost to teens and their babies is as big a concern to me as is the economic cost to the taxpayers. We owe it to future generations to stop this issue at its source and provide the proper education and access to medical services.

[2]Lewin, Tamar; After Long Decline, Teenage Pregnancy Rate Rises; The New York Times; Jan 26, 2010: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/27/us/27teen.html?emc=eta1