Kumasi, June 28, GNA – The Alliance for Reproductive Health Rights (ARHR) has organised a capacity building training for 25 adolescent health champions drawn from the Bosome Freho District, where an adolescent girl project is being implemented.
The project which is being implemented by ARHR in collaboration with the Rights and Responsibilities Initiatives (RRIG) seeks to educate adolescent girls on the reproductive health rights and link them to health facilities for various services.
Also targeted under the project are girls with disability who are often abused sexually due to their conditions by unscrupulous people in society.
They were sensitised on the need to avoid people who show signs of abusing them and exposed to legal remedies available to them when their rights are trampled upon.
Funded by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the project is being implemented in six districts including Bosome Freho, Komenda Edina Eguafo Abirem, south Dayi, Jirapa, Nzema East, and Ashiedu Keteke Sub-Metropolitan.
The adolescent health champions are selected young girls in the implementing districts trained to educate their peers on reproductive health to prevent teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases among young people.
They also served as role models by counselling their peers on sexual reproductive health and responsible sexual lifestyles with emphasis on abstinence.
Mr Isaac Nyampong, Programmes Manager of ARHR said the training was one of three trainings lined up this year to build the capacities of adolescent health champions in three of the implementing districts.
He said there was the need to conduct training for the champions periodically because new faces joined the existing ones as some went back to school and the goal was to refresh the existing ones while building the capacities of the new ones.
“This is what we do almost every year so that they understand the issues that affect young people because they often have a lot of sexual health issues,” he explained.
The training, he said, sought to provide the champions with the needed information on sexual and reproductive health to enable them to effectively engage their peers and link them to the appropriate facilities for services that would improve their health.
GNA