Youth Led Organizations have been trained on Advocacy, Monitoring and Reporting about SRH Services to maintain the provision of essential SHR services and mitigate the effects of COVID-19 in the community, especially among young people and adolescents – thanks to the initiative of Rwanda NGOs Forum on HIV/AIDS and Health Promotion (RNGOF on HIV/AIDS & HP) with the support from Population Action International (PAI) through the Project ‘Supporting CSO advocacy to ensure the right to sexual and reproductive health services during COVID’.
The main objective of the training was to shape youth/adolescents’ leaders from Youth Led Organizations (Nyarugenge, Gasabo & Kicukiro Districts) into champions in advocating for sexual reproductive health services for adolescents during Covid-19 period.
Speaking to the media about the training, Nooliet Kabanyana, Executive Secretary of RNGOF on HIV/AIDS & HP said: “We organized this training to furtherly share knowledge and skills about daily activities of these different organizations especially on young people’s SRH for the sake of improved access to service among youth and adolescents. We want to make sure all these participants have skills on how to address key SRH based issues in young people.”
With the spread of the COVID-19 in Rwanda, some routine health care services such as counselling, access to contraceptives among others have been severely affected, which resulted in underprivileged access to sexual and reproductive health care for women and young people.
“I am grateful to the trainers for helping us strengthen our capacities as young leaders from youth led organizations. We have acquired skills on how to effectively conduct our youth targeted activities, in order to help young people, have their right to access to SRH services without any limitations” said Eric Niyongira, representative from Medical Students Association Rwanda.
Rwanda has declared family planning (FP) and adolescent sexual reproductive health (ASRH) a national priority for poverty reduction and socio-economic development of the country.
Rwanda’s family planning and adolescent sexual and reproductive health strategic plan (2018-2024), which lays priorities for the health sector strategic plan is designed to ensure that “all women, men, adolescent girls and boys in Rwanda have universal access to quality integrated family planning and adolescents SRH information and services in an equitable, efficient and sustainable manner”.
