The Out of School Sexual Reproductive Health Education (OOS-RHE) programme funded by the United Nations Population Fund Ghana seeks to empower Young Health Advocates and Young Persons in Detention (YPiD) with quality and adequate information, attitude, and skills on Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights to facilitate the process of making healthy decisions and to communicate their choices clearly.
We have been implementing this programme for the past 4-years in Greater Accra, Ashanti & the Northern Region.
Achievement
The following are the programmatic achievements for 2023:
1. 20 young boys in detention were trained as peer facilitators to support facilitation at the center.
2. 95 boys were reached at the detention center with reproductive health education
3. 2 boys in detention were treated for Syphilis and 31 treated for malaria, following a health screening for 225 young people in detention on STI, HIV, TB, Eye, and Malaria
4. 246 Young People Living with HIV were reached with reproductive health education
5. 20 young people living with HIV have been trained in livelihood skills including bakery, wig making, detergent and soap making.
6. About 500 people were screened during HIV outreaches conducted in Accra, Tamale and Kumasi, which recorded 8 reactive. These people were linked to the hospital for confirmatory test.
Some Human Interest Stories from the Programme
What Lies Ahead Living As A YPLHIV
This is a story of a female participant living with HIV. During the session on discrimination and stigma, the project team noticed that she rushed out rather sad and pensive state. The team followed up with her and met her crying downstairs. Upon interrogation, it was revealed that she found out her status 3 months prior to attending the session. According to her, her lifelong was to enlist in the military and that her dream came crashing when during discussions it came up that PLHIV cannot enlist into the military. She was consoled and assured of better and bigger opportunities to explore aside the military. She was further referred to the Ghana AIDS Commission Ambassador for further counselling.
Another narrated her HIV story, saying:
“Growing up, I have admired the midwifery profession so much, but I thought I may infect mothers and babies during the delivery process, so I rather applied to read Communications. However, through these sessions, now I know that I can still pursue my dream and my status cannot limit or define me. For now, my parents have incurred all the cost for admission and I have started schooling already so I will appeal to them to change my course next year but if they refuse, I will complete the degree and make savings so that I can pursue my dream course in the future.”
We are extremely proud of the impact this project has heard on these young people.