Adolescent Reproductive Health Project
Kafue Adolescent Reproductive Health Project, KARHP
Click here to read the World Bank's report on this programme.
Almost fifty percent of Zambia’s population is below the age of 15. The HIV rate is among the highest in the world, and STI is on the increase, especially among the young. In Kafue, in the vicinity of the capital city of Lusaka, RFSU – in collaboration with the Planned Parenthood Association of Zambia (PPAZ) and the Family Life Movement of Zambia (FLMZ) – is training young people, teachers and health-care personnel in the arena of sexual and reproductive health. The project has been in progress since 1996, and is called the Kafue Adolescent Reproductive Health Project (KARHP). One of its purposes is to build up effective sexuality education in schools. Youth educators are trained to reach out to young people outside school. The establishment of health clinics is designed to make it easier to talk about sexual matters, and access to contraceptives is expected to increase.
Over time, the aim is to replicate the project in other districts. The work can best be described by means of a sketch called the “KARHP Tree”. The trunk of the tree is the project itself, the roots the organizations referred to above, and the fruit to be harvested the avoidance of HIV and unwanted pregnancy. The tree is watered by the Swedish International Corporation Agency (SIDA) and Zambia’s Central Board of Health. The branches are the modes of operating – everything from school clubs and workshops to health clinics and support groups.
A school-twinning project has been set up between a school in Zambia and one on the Swedish island of Gotland.
Institutional Collaboration in the area of Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health
Period:
1996-2001
Recipient:
Planned Parenthood Association of Zambia, PPAZ, Family Life Movement of Zambia, FLMZ, Ministry of Health.
Funding agency:
Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, Sida
Description:
The overall objectives of this project is to develop strategies for the delivery of sexual and reproductive health/family life education formation to the in and out of school youth in the project site of Kafue with the aim of strengthening the capacities and collaboration of the institutions involved. To achieve this, the collaborating institutions designed a plan of action to be implemented. Those activities included: needs assessment, national workshop, training of trainers and peer educators, training of health staff in the provision of user friendly health services to adolescents and the actual implementation of the peer education programme. The trainings have been successful with the training teams consisting of staff from RFSU, PPAZ and FLMZ. With the groundwork established during the first two years, the aim of the project has been to strengthen the strategies developed by carrying out activities designed for the 1998-2000 period. This has included expanding the project to other areas in Kafue District and introducing the Male Involvement component in the project.
Outcome:
The results showed that the problems identified in the needs assessment (prostitution, unwanted pregnancies, drug abuse, STIs, poverty and unemployment) were still faced by young people, but the focus groups were unanimous that these problems were worse before the project was implemented. They felt that the project activities were directly responsible for these changes.
Raising public awareness of the Cairo Platform of Action, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, development and population issues, public education
This project took place in 1999 to 2001 and dealed with activities addressing the weak public awareness of the Cairo Platform of Action, sexual and reproductive health and rights, development and population issues.
Audience:
- Opinion leaders including future opinion leaders. This includes other NGOs, media and individual journalists.
- Policy-makers such as parliamentarians from all parties, the youth sections from all the political parties, the foreign ministry, other ministries and Sida officials.
- School leaders and head teachers.
- RFSU's obligations where
- Provide up to date information to parliamentarians of all parties, journalists, youth groups and civil servants about the situation in the developing world in relation to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), population and development.
- Produce material from RFSU’s experiences and document ongoing activities to show good examples of how to work with SRHR.
- Arrange seminars, exchange visits for parliamentarians and study tours.
Kafue adolescent reproductive health project
The overall objective is to improve young peoples sexual and reproductive health in the community. One other objective is to through sensitisation and trainings change the ignorant or negative attitudes towards YFHS.
The project has a community-based character, with participatory involvement of youth, parent-elders, teachers, health providers, local policy and decision makers.
The youth have to a certain extent been showing the way and leading the development of the project. One good example of this is the introduction of the Parent-elder training and working group that was introduced due to the fact that parents asked for the same level of knowledge that their children had received. One other example, and innovative part of the project is the introduction of young Community Based Distributors (CBDs). This was introduced on demand from the young people and here one has to take in to account that PPAZ’s criteria for CBDs in other project is that they have to be married.
One other outstanding component is the Advocacy part in the project where a twinning of MPs component was added during year three. This was a result of piggy backing onto the RFSU parliamentarian’s project with the Swedish SRHR all-party group.
Also the establishment of master training teams has been outstanding and led to e.g. the Ministry of Education contracting Kafue master trainers for nation wide training of teachers.
We have replicated the project model in two other districts in Zambia. The level of applicability in the project is very high and this has also been recognised by the Ministry of Health and the Aids Council. Both these bodies have identified the Kafue Adolescent Reproductive Health Project to be a Catalytic project.
The project is also being replicated through a UNFPA programme in the Northern region.
The Minister for Education has used the Kafue Master trainers for training of teachers on alarge scale.
Results
After five years (one inception year, three project years and one last year where we documented the best practises, replicated (scaled up) in two new district, and established master trainer teams) the outcome is positive with regard to the level of community involvement and SRHR knowledge and attitude change on all levels. The district ministries now have SRHR on their agendas and this has been reflected. The different working groups that have been established work well and especially the Health providers, with support from peer-educators have managed to perform YFHS in the clinics where the staff have been sensitised and trained. The parent-elders are very independent and very committed and they are the ones that did managed to reach acceptance of the project also from the Catholic Church in Kafue. The advocacy teams that have been established managed to convince the Kafue council to give the football arena and four recreational areas as a gift to the project. One can say that the community is up on their feet in terms of both a high level of awareness and a high level of commitment.
Weaknesses identified are that the capacity strengthening within PPAZ should have been developed further (this is now negotiated with Sida in a discussion with the Swedish Embassy in Zambia. Something that has led to a new project that will focus solely Institutional capacity strengthening of PPAZ). |
Print page
Send to a friend