• Atwima Kwanwoma district, Ashanti Region

Foase Speaks Out on Adolescent + Youth Reproductive Health Issues

Hope For Future Generations (HFFG) in partnership with the Ghana Health Service, Ghana Education Service and the Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana (PPAG) has organised a community outreach at Foase in the Atwima Kwanwoma district in the Ashanti Region.  This community outreach forms part of the implementation of the UKAid-funded Ghana Adolescent Reproductive Health (GHARH) project.

The GHARH project in the Ashanti region is an extended project based on the successes that partners, including HFFG, chalked in a 3-year implementation in the Brong Ahafo region with funding from UKAid through Palladium. The overall goal of the GHARH project is to contribute to reducing the incidence of teenage pregnancy in the Ashanti Region by 6%.

Obaapanyin Akosua Deduah, Queenmother of Foase, in her welcome remarks acknowledged the existence of adolescent and youth sexual and reproductive health concerns such as teenage pregnancy, unsafe abortion, poor menstrual hygiene, misconceptions about family planning methods, sexual abuse, high numbers of drop-outs from basic school, among other challenges within the community. Therefore, she committed to playing a lead role towards addressing these challenges through the GHARH project.

The community members were not excluded in declaring ownership for the project. Mothers, fathers, adolescents and young people engaged in the health talks, discussing puberty and the biological changes that children aged 5-9 years experience. What concerned them was the need to keep adolescents in school and to access general adolescent health information. These community members also expressed their education and health needs during the open forum.

The Atwima Kwanwoma District Director of Health Services, Ms. Comfort Suglo, encouraged girls to stay in school and to fully access all available education on their sexual and reproductive health rights. This was further emphasised by Ms. Joyce Opoku Mensah, the Atwima Kwanwoma School Health Education Programme (SHEP) Coordinator, who was also present on behalf of the District Director of Education. She reminded both male and female adolescents and youth about the need to keep themselves healthy -physically, mentally, socially and sexually- so they could benefit from everything that school has to offer. Adolescents and youth received both sexual and reproductive health information and services at the outreach.

Since 2001, HFFG is a local non-governmental organisation that has taken bold initiative to form partnerships to improve the health, education and socio-economic status of women, children and young people.

December 2016