Awareness of reproductive health among youth stressed
Report Gul Hamaad Farooqi
CHITRAL, Nov 13: A day-long sensitization session was held at Al-Nasir Community-based School in Garam Chashma under the aegis of the Reproductive Health Initiative with adolescents (RHIA).
The event was funded by Plan Pakistan International and organized by the Aga Khan Rural Support Program.
Addressing the participants, Syed Altaf Ali Shah said RHIA was working in the reproductive health sector to create public awareness, especially among students, about reproductive health. He said the main objective of the programme was to promote better reproductive health of the adolescents through different awareness sessions, workshops and theater performances.
He said they have six adolescent-friendly centres (AFC) where they created awareness among the people on different topics such as hepatitis, HIV/AID, early marriage conflicts, peer education, health and hygiene, puberty changes, child rights etc.
A large number of adults are still uneducated and the young generation is inclined towards different social issues. “So we sensitize the people to protect them from these diseases and to involve them in creative and productive activities.”
Girl students presented a theatre performance on different issues such as HIV/AID, early marriages while boy students performed on illiteracy. The students through their performances also tried to show how young people travelling to big cities got involved in social evils contracting HIV/AID.
Another group of students presented a drama on early marriage and its effects on their health and other issues.
The third group performed about illiteracy to prove the importance of education. They also showed that some youth achieved high standard through education and those who did not acquire education faced troubles in their practical life.
Excellent Work… no doubt its the best tool to communicate ASRH related issues with the genera public and it’s the NEED OF TIME … Keep it up AKRSP Team.
Very excellent initiative, such type of events shall be organized in different valleys where students of all schools operating in the surroundings shall participate. In past, such type of events have been organized especially by ITREB and it was very productive to address the social issues i.e. drug abuse, treatment of fatal diseases, education of girls etc. The role play, if recorded and distributed through USBs, CDs, email etc to the masses will be very useful because majority of the households in the area have computers.