NGO Educates Adolescents on Sexual and Reproductive Health Issues

The Centre for Community Studies and Development (CENCOSAD), a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) has organized health fairs and games for adolescent girls in the Odododiodoo Constituency to educate them on their sexual and reproductive health.

The event organized in partnership with UNFPA and Alliance and Reproductive Health Rights (ARHR) was to empower out-of-school adolescents through the provision of Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE), Sexual and Gender-based Violence.

It was also aimed at undertaking contraceptive demand generation activities to promote girls’ access to CSE and SRH services.

The girls aside the sporting activities, which included football competition, sack race, lime and spoon, ludo, essay and poetry recitals, dancing competitions, educational video and film shows among others were also educated on HIV and AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

Mr Micheal Aggrey, the Monitoring and Evaluation Officer of CENCOSAD, speaking at the event, noted that adolescent were among the vulnerable groups in society and therefore the initiative would enable them make informed decisions when it came to sexual and reproductive health.

He said the NGO had also embarked on other activities such as; training community health champions and community facilitators and training sessions for out-of-school girls with disability on SRHR information services and life skills.

The girls have also been trained on their rights as citizens irrespective of their disability and where to seek for legal services in case of rape, defilement, and assault, he stated.

Mr Aggrey noted that the NGO had also linked the adolescents to some health facilities, which they could visit for proper counselling in relation to their health needs.

He urged both adolescent girls and boys to try as much as possible to abstain from sex and not engage in activities that would hinder them in future, adding that; “there is so much out there for them if they are able to take their education seriously”.

Mr Aggrey also called on parents to be responsible by educating their children on their reproductive health, personal hygiene, menstruation and pregnancy issues as it would enable them make informed choices so that people would not take undue advantage over them.

CENCOSAD is an NGO established in 1977 and seeks to come out with strategies, which are centred on empowering and enabling communities of individuals and people to realize their own development through an integrated approach of self-organisation, participatory action-research and evaluation, training, networking and resource mobilization.

Source: GNA