World Contraception Day Commemorations

October 18, 2018

World Contraception Day takes place on September 26th every year. The day’s mission is to improve awareness of all contraceptive methods available and enable young people to make informed choices on their sexual and reproductive health.As ROOTS we commemorated World Contraception Day at Maizelands Farm, Bindura. This initiative is part of our efforts through the Right Here Right Now platform to promote access to SRH services including contraception. The turn out was incredible. Locals gathered received HIV testing and there were over 40 consultations on family planning and over 10 women received services. Our initial target age group was the 15-24 years.

Discussion was around questions such as:
Do young people know about their sexual reproductive health and rights?
Are young people accessing health services?
Why are young people not accessing health services?

Most members of the group knew about ASRH and what they can do to for healthy living styles but young people within the area didn’t know that they have a right to seek and access health services even information for free. Young people said they were not accessing health services because service providers attitudes were largely negative towards young people and there was a lot of stigma and the long distances to service delivery points hence they appreciated service providers who came for the commemoration. Another problem highlighted was the lack of confidentiality since service providers were also members of the community that young people come from. Again the requirement to pay a fee for consultation which they usually cannot afford to pay due to their economic status was another hindrance to access.

A huge thank you to Transmart and Youthengage for the fruitful collaboration!