FAWEMA engages stakeholders on sexual reproductive health services for adolescents
Forum for African Women Educationalists in Malawi (FAWEMA) has engaged stakeholders in education on how they can support Innovations in Health Rights and Development (Iheard) project to empower adolescents.
Speaking during a three-day training on Value Clarification and Attitude Transformation (VCAT) on Life Skills Education under the project, FAWEMA Executive Director, Wesley Chabwera said the organization is focusing on empowering young people especially the adolescents to access sexual reproductive health services through policy makers, education officials, traditional and faith leaders among others.
“As agenda setters, policy holders and implementers when they are working with young people their values impact and affect the delivery of sexual reproductive health education and services especially towards learners in schools,” he said.
Chabwera stressed that the organization want to go into a process where it can take away values and put the young people at the front as to compare to allowing the values to hinder the service delivery.
“Recognizing that there are gaps especially in rural areas where we are focusing on. As FAWEMA we are working in schools with the adolescents girls and boys in both primary and secondary schools,” he said.
Chabwera added that the project is implemented in the districts of Dowa, Ntchisi and Lilongwe through among others have set up school clubs where boys and girls discuss issues pertaining to health education and life skills as well as general academic endeavors.
He said, through clubs, young people interact and discuss on how they can engage with duty bearers on the gaps that they observe so that they can be supported.
Billy Chikhwana Banda, Education Division Manager for Central East Education Division said the project is timely as more girls are dropping out from schools due to teenage pregnancies, early marriages as well as sexual reproductive health related issues.
“The coming of this project will help young people enhance their knowledge and make right decisions,” he said.
IHEARD is a five-year project funded by Global Affairs Canada (GAC) targeting 3,000,000 adolescent girls and young women aged between 10 to 24 years in primary and secondary schools to dismantle barriers that affect girls in the realisation of their sexual and reproductive health rights.
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