|
Changing Health Options for Youth in Togo
Adjo sits in her class after school, not feeling well and wondering
what to do. It’s been two weeks since the pains started. She feels that
she can’t tell her parents or her boyfriend. There’s no one to ask about
what’s happening to her body. She walks home from school thinking, “Maybe
if I just wait, the pains will go away.”
In Togo, students nervous and embarrassed about physical symptoms of
a sexually transmitted condition had nowhere to turn. But with the help
of PSI/Togo, students with questions now have a place to go. With funding
from USAID’s SFPS (Santé Familiale et Prevention du SIDA) and from UNICEF,
PSI/Togo has opened three sexually transmitted infection (STI) diagnosis
and treatment clinics. The clinics provide youth with confidential,
affordable, and youth-friendly reproductive health services. In the
front of the clinics are signs bearing the name “100% Jeune, 100%
Reglo” (100% Young, 100% With It), identifying a safe haven for
students where they can receive information, diagnosis, and treatment
of STIs without stigma or judgment from clinic staff.
Two PSI/Togo in-house physicians trained clinic staff in STI management
for youth in existing public and private health clinics in Lomé, the
capital city of Togo, and in Kpalimé, the second largest city. In only
six months of operation, the clinics have in some cases more than doubled
the number of students seen each month. The cost to students for a consultation
with a health professional is two to three times lower than in other
medical facilities—about fifty cents a visit. The 100% Jeune
clinics are starting to grow with publicity from radio spots, advertisements,
and word of mouth.
The success of the three clinics can be directly linked to their partnerships
with local secondary and high schools. Sixteen schools near the three
clinics have created a peer educator program supervised by teachers
and PSI-trained local NGOs. Students who volunteered for the program
received intensive training in HIV and STI prevention from PSI/Togo,
then became vendors of PSI’s Protector Plus brand condoms to
sell to their fellow students. Equipped with a wooden model of a penis
and a bag full of condoms, peer educators teach their friends how to
use condoms and why correct condom use is vital. In their conversations
with their classmates, the peer educators identify kids who seem to
need STI consultations and send them to the closest 100% Jeunes
clinic. So in schools with hundreds of students and few resources, youth
now have an advocate for safer sex behavior and STI treatment sitting
right next to them in class.
In Togo, 15% of teenage girls between the ages of 15-19 give birth each
year, and 4% of the male and female students in this age group are thought
to be infected with HIV. The 100% Jeune clinics are an effective
way of targeting an important part of the population that has been ignored
by mainstream health centers. To further PSI/Togo’s commitment to youth
and their reproductive rights, two new proposals have been submitted
to donor agencies to improve our existing clinics, and to open new clinics
in other regions of Togo. A voluntary counseling and testing component
(VCT) is also planned for the 100% Jeune clinics.
So girls like Adjo, who were scared and alone, now can make decisions
about their reproductive health with the help of service-oriented clinics
specifically designed for them. Peer educators in schools show students
that they can improve their health and take charge of their lives by
seeking treatment for STIs, and by learning how to prevent future illness,
unwanted pregnancies, and HIV/AIDS. With the help of PSI, health options
for Togolese youth are changing for the better!
—Rene Van Slate |
 |
A young man sports the new logo for PSI/Togo's 100%
Jeunes/100% Reglo youth program.
|
|
|
