Disturbed by growing teenage pregnancy, abortions, sexually transmitted diseases and other sexual health challenges among adolescents and young Nigerians, HACEY’s Health Initiative has trained and empowered civil society organisations, non-governmental organizations and other stakeholders on how to improve access of youths to Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) in Osun State.
The over 55 trained NGOs and CSOs who are based in Osun State were tasked to create youth friendly centres that would make available SRHR services to adolescents and young persons, especially through digital platforms and other relevant resources.
HACEY, with the support of AmplifyChange, organised a comprehensive 2-Day Capacity Building Workshop for the NextGen SRHR Fellows in Osogbo.
Addresing participants on SRHR in the state, a Public Health expert from Osun State University, Dr. Feyisayo Asekun-Olarinmoye charged CSOs, policymakers, parents and other relevant stakeholders to focus their attention on adolescents as it relates to their SRHR.
Asekun-Olarinmoye said owing to lack of informed decision making on SRHR services, young persons undergo risky sexual behaviours which lead to so many consequences and complications such as young persons dropping out from school, heightening teenage pregnancy, increasing maternal mortality, new born child mortality, and unsafe abortion.
“So, for us to actually combat all these issues, we must work with this group of people to ensure that adolescents and young persons have a higher chance of being attended to, when we talk about youth-friendly clinics, we will make them to be friendly in the real sense of the word. So, the attitude of everyone, whether at the policy level, parent, teachers, religious leaders will determine whether there young persons will feel safe in discussing issues relating to their sexual health and right.
“We need to change our orientation to be more open, to embrace this particular group of young people, and to understand and know that we have to work with them for the betterment of the nation,” she said.
Speaking, the Executive Director of HACEY, Rhoda Robinson, said the goal of the organisation is to advance advocacy efforts, improve SRHR services delivery for young people, and achieve this through innovative digital integration and comprehensive training.
“The NextGen SRHR Fellowship is more than just a training program, it is a transformative journey for CBOs and NGOs committed to changing the landscape of SRHR advocacy. As part of the Fellowship’s curriculum, we focused on enhancing the capacity of these organizations to improve the effectiveness of SRHR interventions for young people, knowing that by equipping these organizations with the right tools and knowledge, they can make a profound difference in their communities.
“The challenges faced by adolescents and young persons – early pregnancies, unsafe abortions, maternal mortality, and gender-based violence – demand more than just awareness, they require empowered action. With the right training, these organizations can lead the way in creating safer, healthier environments, especially for young people who bear the brunt of these issues.
“With the support of AmplifyChange, HACEY is not just hosting a workshop; we are igniting a movement. The NextGen SRHR Fellows will dive deep into mastering digital strategies and enhancing their SRHR projects. We’re focusing our efforts on organizations across Lagos, Oyo, Ondo, Ekiti, and Osun states, where the need is great, and the potential for impact is even greater. By tackling critical issues like maternal mortality and teenage pregnancies, we are ensuring these emerging CSOs and NGOs have the digital tools and expertise they need to elevate their advocacy and revolutionize SRHR service delivery,” she stated.
In her remarks, Oluwatomi Olunuga, the Programme Manager at HACEY said, “This workshop is to empower and strengthen their capacity as regards planning programme, running advocacy activities, running campaigns, and how they can make use of digital tools to have conversations on SRHR for adolescents and young people because if they don’t know how to run these things, they cannot make any impact in the lives of the young people.”
Participants committed themselves to creating conversations around SRHR in various localities in the state and also provide youth-friendly clinics to educate and counsel them on their sexual and reproductive health and rights for attainment of sustainable development goals.
For Bolarinwa Olabode, the Executive Director, of Refuge of Life Foundation, one of the Fellows, “It is high time for parents and guardians to start making available choices for adolescents and youths and should not pretend that our adolescents and young persons don’t know what they know. We should give them available and right information, so that they can be able to choose well. We don’t want to be losing adolescents and youths to diseases, teenage pregnancy, and unsafe abortions, we should make them understand the kind of choices they make and the right information as regards the choice to make. Not choosing in ignorance, or just because they are being forced to choose a particular because a lot of people who want to understand the concept of sexual activity,
“Because we want to input our traditional and religious beliefs, we want to deny them the right information and that is why they go out and become what we don’t want in our society, by aborting and why doing that, many of them don’t do it right. But if they understand that they can use contraceptives and others, they can live a healthy sexual life.”
Another participant, Adenike Atooki, representing Talk2Temmie Network, said, “We have been exposed to training on how to make youth friendly centers for adolescents, not judging them and give them youth friendly services. They are at risk once we withdraw information from them. All stakeholders should know that withdrawing sexual information from youths is exposing them to dangers. We won’t judge them based on societal norm and we will provide relevant services to them.”
