Youth Harvest Foundation Ghana, a youth centered organization based in the Upper East Region, on Thursday July 14, 2022 at a stakeholder engagement meeting, launched a new project dubbed “Shifting Gender Norms for Improved Maternal and Adolescent Health (SIMAH) in Ghana and the Gambia”.
The project forms part of the operational areas of Youth Harvest Foundation which bothers on education, Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights, entrepreneurship skills development, market access and sustainable farming and environmental sustainability and climate change.
The project, which aims at training nurses on Gender Transformative Approach components, recruiting and training peer educators to support nurses and will see the foundation constitute PSC to provide support, will be implemented in three districts including Bawku West and Talensi Districts of the Upper East Region and West Mamprusi District in the North East Region.
The organization finds Gender Transformative Approach as a substantially more effective at achieving positive health outcomes, generates increased awareness and critical thinking on gender and power imbalances with a focus on research and intervention and is being implemented with a consortium members including society for the study of Women Health (BPCR), the Agency for the Development of Women and Children (ADWAC) in the Gambia, Youth Harvest Foundation Ghana (YHFG) – on youth friendly services with funding from International Development Research Center (IDRC).
A presentation by Albert Akafari, a Project Officer with Youth Harvest Foundation Ghana showed that up to 14% of adolescent girls aged 15-19 are mothers or pregnant with their first child in Ghana, and 17% in Upper East Region.
The situation appears to have worsened with the spread of Covid-19 with nearly 301 girls getting pregnant every day in 2020 alone. The presented data also captured that unsafe abortion constitutes about 12% of maternal mortality rate in sub- Sahara Africa (PRB, 2021).
Speaking to the Media at the launch, Albert Apotele, a Project Officer with Youth Harvest Foundation Ghana, pointed out that norms like people viewing adolescent centers as abortion centers, issues of sex not being discussed and adolescents guided by quality information among others are the focus of the project.
“When it comes to gender imbalances and power imbalances and inequalities within the community, evidence shows that girls or young people who go to the adolescent centers are being tagged as spoilt girls or boys and the centers are being tagged as abortion centers. Another norm is that, issues of sexual health education are a no-go area for people to discuss.
Young people are not at liberty to discuss issues of sexual health that bother them and these are things we need to challenge because majority of young people are engaging in sex which leads to teenage pregnancy and early marriage and even STIs.
So, when they’re hiding to have sex, we again speak against contraception. The project is looking at how we can generate a demand in the community for the use of health services, people should be at liberty to walk to a health center for education on STIs among others”. He said.
Sedonia Adabugah, an Adolescent Health Coordinator for the Talensi District says the project will address the challenges with information and the service delivery structure.
“This will help provide young people with the necessary information especially for young people, their hormones lead them”. She stated.
In a speech read on his behalf by Yvonne Wunchua, the Upper East Regional Minister, Stephen Yakubu noted that teenage pregnancy remains high in the region which is above the national average adding that such projects are welcoming as he calls for continuous and improved stakeholder and community engagements.
