By Evans Worlanyo Ameamu
Dziedzorve (V/R), Aug 22, GNA-Women at Woe-Dziedzorve in the Anlo District of the Volta Region have thrown their support behind an ongoing education drive by the Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana (PPAG), aimed at equipping adolescents with accurate knowledge on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR).
The initiative, implemented by PPAG in partnership with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) was part of the Government of Ghana–UNFPA Country Programme, and forms part of a broader reproductive health education exercise designed to draw young people closer to health facilities without fear or shame.
Ms Happy Akorli, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, expressed appreciation for the initiative, describing it as a timely intervention that would help protect them, their daughters and the wider youth of the area from the dangers of poor reproductive health choices.
She said that Woe-Dziedzorve has since been calling for such interventions to be sustained and expanded to reach more communities,as it was considered a critical step toward safeguarding the future of adolescents in the area.
“This is the very type of productive health education we need to know. We have learnt a lot that will definitely change mentality as well as how we use to take good care of our sexual reproductive health issues,” she said.
She expressed satisfaction about the education and thanked the PPAG stakeholders for the gesture and further promised that knowledge acquired would be used to improve their lives and that of other women and girls in the communities.
Mr Christopher E. Makam, Focal Person for the UNFPA Adolescent Girls Empowerment Project and GBV Scale-Up Project at PPAG, explained that the initiative was necessary because many adolescents in the local cultural setting felt too shy or embarrassed to visit health facilities for reproductive health services.
“Our programme is being rolled out in five districts in the Volta Region, namely Anloga, Keta, Akatsi North, Adaklu and Central Tongu, all of which are selected based on data showing high rates of teenage pregnancy, child marriage and sexually transmitted infections over the years,” he said.
According to him, the selection of the districts was scientifically driven, and that limited resources made it necessary to prioritise areas where adolescent reproductive health challenges were most pressing.
Mr Makam said the ultimate goal of the initiative was to build trust between adolescents and health workers, so that young people could visit facilities confidently, knowing well that staff would treat them with confidentiality and without judgement.
He noted that many adolescents ended up with unwanted pregnancies or infections after relying on inaccurate information from informal sources and stressed the importance of exposing them to trained health professionals instead.
Mr Makam cautioned that failing to properly educate adolescents on reproductive health carried long-term consequences that would affect not only families but also communities and the country’s economy as a whole.
He explained that women or girls could report gender-based violence, seek family planning and menstrual health information, and access counselling, medical support and other forms of assistance, including help for survivors of defilement to the PPAG.
“Facilities across the five beneficiary districts have been oriented to offer confidential, non-judgmental and youth-friendly services, to help build the trust needed to encourage more adolescents to seek care without fear.”
They further revealed that more 40 activities had been carried out under the wider project in the last quarter with the initiative at Keta and Anloga districts been another component of a broader strategy to make health facilities more accessible to young people across the region.
GNA
Edited by: Maxwell Awumah /Kenneth Odeng Adade