Project Manager for the Alliance of GAYO and Her Liberty, Kettie Mikwala has urged the health workers to be open with the youth.
Alliance of Gayo successfully ending unsafe abortions in Malemia Village in Zomba District, Her Liberty, a local organization in partnership with Girls Activist Youth Organization (GAYO) on Monday held a meeting at Songani Primary School with health workers around the area to orient them on the project they have launched to end cases of unsafe abortion.
She said they need to be open to them when they are seeking reproductive health services and make them feel safe and to keep on recording the number of cases being reported.
“Let’s make the youth safe when they come to seek for reproductive services so that they can be more open to tell us what is happening, we have to sensitize the boy child too on the importance of using contraceptives and clear them of the misconceptions,” Mikwala said.
During the discussion the health workers said there are unsafe abortions since abortion is currently legal only to save the life of a pregnant woman in the country because of this the majority of terminations are performed under unsafe conditions.
Machinjiri Health Centre representative, Gift Matchado added that denial of family planning services of the youth from guardians was stimulating unsafe abortions.
“Last time we found out that 20 students from Matandani Primary School in our area were pregnant, in a bid to solve this we held a meeting including the Member of Parliament of our area, health workers and (PTA) where we thought of sensitizing the youth about family planning however the parents refused since believe it encourages sexual behaviour,”
“This is a challenge since it is leading to unwanted pregnancies thereby unsafe abortions, so this project came at the right time, so that we teach the community that family planning is not prostitution but one of ways to solve these to unsafe abortions,” Matchado added.
H. Parker health Centre representative, Wellness Kamwendo expressed his excitement of his area being included in this project.
“My area is very far, hilly and hard to reach and most of the people there lack knowledge on these matters so coming in of this project will not only reduce or the cases of unsafe abortions but also teach the community of the importance of family planning,” he said.
GAYO and Her Liberty believes it is only going to achieve its goals if they are going to work with other social services like the health sector, the information sector, the education sector, gender sector, the legal sector and the community itself.
The meeting brought together pharmacists, nurses, safe motherhood workers and other health workers in the project as they are the ones who work directly with these patients.
