Nasarawa health workers, NGOs raise adolescent sexual health concerns

Hacey Health Initiative

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A non-governmental organisation – Hacey – has presented a scorecard of its framework priorities on adolescent and young people’s sexual health.

The presentation was done at the second national bi-annual health and development sub-committee meeting.

The Executive Director of Hacey, Rhoda Robinson, stated this while reeling out the NGO’s scorecard of its SRHR Impact Plus Project at the Second Biannual Adolescent Health and Development Sub-Committee meeting held on Tuesday and Wednesday in the Karu Local Government Area of Nasarawa State.

Arewa PUNCH reports that the two-day meeting was organised by the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare in collaboration with Hacey, a non-governmental organisation and the United Nations Children Fund.

Stakeholders in the health sector, specifically on adolescent health, including the federal and state government health officials, officials of NGOs focused on adolescent health, and others who were in attendance.

According to Robinson, aside from the training of the 100 medical providers to deliver youth-friendly SRHR services in tertiary institutions, the NGO also offered capacity strengthening to 600 civil society organisations and youth champions on designing SRHR programs for adolescents and young people in their community of interventions and promoting SRHR information and services among peers within schools in communities.

Robinson, who said that the NGO has also launched ‘Tombey’ SRHR Resource Centre as a safe space with tools, literature, mentorship and youth-created content, added that the NGO has also established three media labs in Lagos, Osun and Oyo states, which are free for youth advocacy and CSOs.

According to her, “10 million adolescents and youths have been reached through trained youth advocate CSOs across friendly advocacy radio, digital media, blogs and community platforms,” she said

The ED added that the NGO, in a bid to have a broader understanding of the challenges facing adolescent health in Nigeria, had consulted over 200 youths and CSOs across 10 states, in which they provided actionable insights on awareness gaps, stigma, access barriers and service readiness.

Robinson also revealed that her organisation had also achieved 60000 interactions from its “own your health” media campaign.

According to her, for over a decade, Hacey has been at the forefront of delivering innovative SRHR solutions for adolescents and young people in Nigeria and through the SRHR Impact Plus Project, just as it has also continued to expand its reach and deepen its impact.

“In the last two years, the project has strengthened youth engagement, improved access to youth-friendly health services, amplified SRHR messaging nationwide and built stronger partnerships across government, civil society and communities,” she further disclosed.

During an interview session with our correspondent, the Sexual Reproductive Health Manager at Hacey, Opeyemi Makanjuola, said due to a lack of adequate youth-friendly centres, there were still a lot of challenges and gaps when it comes to addressing adolescent health issues, specifically sexual reproductive health among young people.

“One of the ways we want to work on that is to create a scorecard, and the aim of the scorecard is basically to track progress and to also highlight areas where there are big issues, big concerns,” she stressed.

Makanjuola pointed out that after noticing that young people were facing the challenge of accessing services and going to hospitals, one of the key steps taken by Hacey with the project was to target centres closer to young people.

“We realised that tertiary institutions are the hub of youths or young people and we started training the health centres in some of the tertiary institutions in the country on how to offer SRHR services to young Nigerians,” she said.

Arewa PUNCH reports further that some stakeholders at the meeting hailed Hacey for its efforts at changing the narrative on adolescent health, especially sexual reproductive health services of young Nigerians.

The stakeholders, which included Dr Ovuoraye John, the Acting Director, Family Health, Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare; Prof. Adesegun Fatusi, Chairman, National Technical Working Group on Adolescent Health; Hajiya Fatima Adamu, Co-Chair, TWG, Adolescent Health, among others, also called for more commitment from the government, donor partners and critical stakeholders in prioritising adolescent health.

They also advocated for more awareness of youth-friendly health centres across Nigeria, tailored to meet the needs of young Nigerians.

Meanwhile, Fatima Adamu, in her opinion, said she believes that young adolescents need that space to talk and discuss and access health services tailored to their needs.

“Whether we deliver on that or not, I think this is a collective responsibility to make sure that specific services are available to our adolescents to access, especially the majority of our adolescent girls in the rural areas.

“This group from poor families don’t know where to go or doesn’t have the resources to access those services. We know that not everything is free. So, it’s a collective responsibility to ensure our young girls have access to the services they desire and need.

“How do we disseminate that and ensure everybody knows, and I mean both boys and girls, know where to go to access appropriate services. It is a collective responsibility,” she concluded.

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