Twenty young persons have undergone an online media training in Reproductive Health Education (RHE) in Accra on Wednesday to lead digital advocacy campaign and increase education, awareness creation on the Youth for Health Project (Y4H).
The Y4H is one of the European Commission’s flagship project to expand access to life-changing adolescent sexual reproductive healthcare in rural and hard-to-reach areas in six countries in Africa, including Ghana.
Under the project which spans 2022-2025, Youth Advocates Ghana (YAG) is partnering Marie Stopes Ghana (MSG) in the implementation of the “capacity building in delivery of comprehensive sexuality education for in school and out of school adolescents, targeting public and community systems and education workforce.’
The MSG collaborates with the Ghana Health Service in the provision of reproductive health services including Sexual Transmitted Infections screening, family planning services, post-abortion care safe abortion and fertility management while YAG complement with advocacy campaign.
The trainees will lead a quarterly series of social media advocacy campaigns on twitter using twitter space, twitter chats and twitter storms to create visibility for the project.
The youth will use twitter chat to solicit youth perspective on how social actors (teachers, parents, chiefs, traditional rulers, religious leaders) can create enabling environment for RHE for adolescent and young people.
Executive Director of YAG, Emmanuel Ametepey, urged the youth to leverage their strength and network by using to useful digital platform to influence policy and promote reproductive healthcare delivery.
He said the Y4H progarmme, as a matter of principle, sought to promote meaningful youth participation, partnership and evidence-based activism that could enhance young person’s access to life changing Adolescent Sexual Reproductive Health Rights (ASRHR).
Mr Ametepey added that the new age of technology and with the compounded effect of COVID-19 had resulted in a visible increase in the use of digital platforms, particularly social media among young persons, thus the need to harness the potential of social media as a tool in ASRHR advocacy.
An ASRHR Communications Specialist, Archibald Adams, in a presentation urged the youth not to undertake advocacy based on emotions but must be based on evidence and urged them to be knowledgeable, consistent and be very credible.
A participant, Miss Mohammed Numbo Fathiyat, an RHE advocate from the Upper West Region said it was an opportunity to build on her experience and knowledge to promote reproductive health services in the area, expressing the hope that the community would continue to support the advocacy campaign.
Another participant, Miss Ayishetu Ameen, said that training had enhance her knowledge and expressed the hope to give back to society the knowledge and experience she had gained to promote reproductive healthcare.
