The ManicaPost
Tendai Gukutikwa
Post Reporter
TO strengthen the capacity of service providers that deal with young people in designing, implementing, monitoring, evaluating and sustaining the youth friendly Adolescents Sexual and Reproductive Health (ASRH) programmes in Manicaland, the Zimbabwe National Family Planning Council (ZNFPC) last week conducted a training of local service providers.
The week-long youth friendly service provision training, which normally costs US$80 per individual, ran for free and participants graduated on Friday.
Participants were programme officers from various organisations.
The participants were given an opportunity to identify strategies to strengthen networking and coordination in ASRH and youth friendly service programming in Manicaland.
In an interview on Monday, ZNFPC Manicaland provincial marketing and communications officer, Mr Daniel Maromo said they trained the service providers who deal with young people to equip them with skills on how to help young people deal with sexual and reproductive health challenges.
“We want to strengthen the understanding of factors associated with the knowledge, attitude and behaviour of adolescents in matters related to sexual and reproductive health among service providers.
“In addition to this, we also need to provide the service providers with more information on how to effectively communicate with young people,” said Mr Maromo.
He also said service providers were given information on sexually transmitted diseases, as well as HIV and Aids.
They were also equipped with knowledge on the policies and laws that govern sexual and reproductive health.
Said Mr Maromo: “Usually we charge for such a training, but as a gesture in terms of our cooperation and coordination, we have realised that there is a gap in the province and we saw it fit to train these service providers for free.”
He said since ZNFPC is a parastatal under the Ministry of Health and Child Care and is mandated to provide and coordinate family planning and sexual reproductive services.
Mr Maromo said ZNFPC will leave no stone unturned in delivering this mandate.
The training was in line with the National Reproductive Health Policy, which speaks about providing friendly sexual and reproductive health services to young people.
The policy also looks at adopting a life cycle approach to provide the community and young people with information, counselling and user-friendly services in order to attain quality adolescent reproductive health.
It also recognises the need for a multi-sectoral approach in dealing with sexual and reproductive health for young people, which also provides an opportunity for meaningful involvement of young people and their parents.
