By Solomon Gumah
Tamale, Dec 24, GNA – Some beneficiary organisations/grantees under the Youth Initiatives Small Grants (YISG) have praised the scheme for helping to empower community voices against harmful socio-cultural practices.
They added that the initiative had also helped in the uptake of contraceptives to reduce unintended pregnancies.
They were speaking during the close-out of the YISG in Tamale.
Under the YISG, some youth-focused organisations in the country received funding to implement about four month-long projects to intensify advocacy against child marriages, unintended pregnancies and harmful socio-cultural practices.
The YISG was undertaken under the Power to Youth Programme implemented by a consortium of three partners; Songtaba, Ghana SRHR Alliance for Young People, and Norsaac, which served as lead implementing partner with funding support from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
From 2022 to 2024, a total of 31 organisations received funding under the YISG to the tune of GHc2.15 million to carry out various activities in the Northern, Upper East, Savannah, North East and Greater Accra Regions.
The organisations included Sawla Model Girls Alumni, Visionary Buluk Organization , Centre for Evaluation and Entrepreneurship and Development, Girls to Women Foundation, Centre for Contemporary Pan-Africanism, and the Chereponi Youth Connect.
Miss Abdul Sallam Faa-ika, President, Sawla Model Girls Alumni, speaking during the close-out ceremony, said in the Savannah Region, the organisation increased awareness on use of contraceptives resulting in uptake amongst adolescents to reduce sexually transmitted infections and unintended pregnancies.
The close-out event provided the platform for the grantees to share their success stories and challenges in the implementation of the initiatives in the communities to help inform the implementation of future projects.
It was also for implementing partners to evaluate the impact of the YISG and how it had better placed communities and individuals to be advocates against sexual and gender-based violence issues and other harmful cultural practices.
Mr Evans Adeba, a representative of the Visionary Buluk Organization located in the Builsa South District of the Upper East Region, said the YISG had helped in empowering directly about 510 youth advocates
and an estimated 11,020 indirect beneficiaries through the media leading to peer-to-peer education sessions and community awareness events.
He said this had led to behavioural change and increased acceptance of SRHR discussions with parents and community leaders actively supporting youth advocacy on sexual and gender-based violence issues.
Alhaji Mohammed Awal Alhassan, Executive Director of Norsaac, commended the grantees for taking bold steps to champion holistic development at the community level.
He encouraged them to continue to advocate for a society where the rights of the vulnerable, including women and girls were respected.
GNA