AFOD Uganda in partnership with ViiV Health Care Foundation UK, Reproductive Health Uganda (RHU) and Adjumani District Health Office, organized a training for health workers to enhance their capacity on provision of friendly Adolescent Sexual reproductive health service in the district.
The medical personnel including midwives, clinical officers, and enrolled nurses were trained on Adolescent Sexual Reproductive Health Rights, positive parenting, counseling for adolescents, Values Clarification (VCAT) for service providers, and the need for adolescent-friendly reproductive health care services.
The training that was facilitated by Reproductive Health Uganda (RHU), aimed at supporting health workers to deliver youth-friendly services in ways that make them feel appreciated in order to foster more open group discussions.
This training was prompted by the fact that Adjumani district is currently grappling with the adverse effects of the COVID-19 lockdown. As a result of the lockdown, schools were closed for over two years and this turned out to be the world’s longest education lockdown ever leading to a spike in teenage pregnancies and early marriages. Although the pinch of the lockdown was also felt on other sectors of the economy and everyday life, it was a great limitation for service providers of Sexual Reproductive Health (SRH).
“We did a random pregnancy test at Maaji secondary school which turned out with more than thirty (30) positive pregnancy cases. The lockdown made it difficult for us to mobilize and carry out sensitization and community dialogues which limited our reach resulting in the high number of pregnancy cases we see today,” says Jimmy Drametu, AFOD Uganda’s Health Coordinator.
Challenges like lack of trained staff, staff turnover created from the transfer of trained personnel and lack of support from parents and guardians among others made it hard to provide SRH services to young people.
A participant presenting
Group activity during training
Participants posing for a group photo
The National Policy for Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights of 2011 allows for the creation of youth-friendly reproductive health services that not only attracts youths but also meets their needs and retains them for continuous care.
Nicholas Otto, who also serves as the Branch in charge of RHU recognizes the need to provide youth-friendly SRH care as an essential remedy and believes will play a huge role in reducing the ever-increasing rate of teenage pregnancy and diseases.
“Some of these diseases are escalating because there’s lack of information, which make youth prone to them,” he said.
According to Betty Jomani, a midwife at Ofua Health Center III, the training was a much-needed intervention to help enhance their strategies of attracting adolescents to attain SRH services from health centers in Adjumani.
At the end of the training, AFODs representative Jimmy Drametu advised the medical workers to apply what they had learned and pledged more support from AFOD to the health facilities to ensure sustainable SRH services to the youth.
In the past, we have provided furniture for Adolescent friendly corners to health centers like Ofua, Openzinzi, Dzaipi, Biira, and Dzaipi and will continue providing support, especially with IEC (information, education, and communication) materials to sensitize adolescents on sexual reproductive health.”
To ensure delivery of quality SRH service to adolescents, it was proposed that a district database for the trained health workers to track and follow-up on SRH training sessions should be created.
