{"id":62249,"date":"2021-04-02T18:37:00","date_gmt":"2021-04-02T22:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/?post_type=disc-post&#038;p=62249"},"modified":"2024-06-11T18:43:30","modified_gmt":"2024-06-11T22:43:30","slug":"creating-safe-spaces-for-sexual-and-reproductive-health-education","status":"publish","type":"disc-post","link":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/pt\/disc-post\/creating-safe-spaces-for-sexual-and-reproductive-health-education\/","title":{"rendered":"CREATING SAFE SPACES FOR SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH EDUCATION"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>BY ROSELYN ODEH, DEPUTY TEAM LEAD, DISC PROJECT NIGERIA\u202f<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s a scene right out of a movie: a&nbsp;hair salon where amidst manicures, pedicures, hair dryers and straighteners, women&nbsp;chat freely about things that matter to them; or a&nbsp;group of men at the barbershop&nbsp;cracking&nbsp;jokes and laughing, talking through a myriad of topics as they get their hair cut.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That&nbsp;is&nbsp;the atmosphere&nbsp;the&nbsp;Delivering Innovation in Self-Care (DISC) team&nbsp;re-created at&nbsp;a recent National Youth Service Corps (NYSC)&nbsp;camp&nbsp;in Nigeria.&nbsp;Convened three times a year, the NYSC&nbsp;seeks to involve&nbsp;Nigerian&nbsp;university&nbsp;graduates in the development of the country&nbsp;and to bring about national unity.&nbsp;Part of the process involves three-week camps that take place&nbsp;across the country\u2019s 36 states, where young people are empowered with different skills.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This year, as part of the DISC project,&nbsp;we&nbsp;set-up self-care lounges&nbsp;at the camps&nbsp;in&nbsp;Oyo and&nbsp;Kaduna&nbsp;states, where young women safely interacted with peers to learn more about sexual and reproductive health (SRH) products and services.&nbsp;The lounges, like&nbsp;a&nbsp;hair salon,&nbsp;offered&nbsp;a safe space for the young women, most of whom&nbsp;are potential new mothers or&nbsp;mothers looking to space their births.&nbsp;The manicures and pedicures&nbsp;helped to make&nbsp;them comfortable&nbsp;and&nbsp;talk openly about SRH, something they rarely&nbsp;do&nbsp;at school&nbsp;or at home. Many women we spoke to have very little knowledge about SRH, yet they are at an age where&nbsp;the decisions they make today are likely to influence the rest of their lives.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Early research conducted by DISC&nbsp;is showing us that&nbsp;when it comes to SRH,&nbsp;women seek convenience&nbsp;and&nbsp;privacy and\u2014even though they might not&nbsp;label it&nbsp;that way\u2014power, the ability to make decisions for themselves.&nbsp;With that in mind, we\u2019re positioning contraceptive self-injection as&nbsp;a product that offers women that convenience&nbsp;(since it\u2019s injected only every three months),&nbsp;privacy&nbsp;(since a woman can self-inject in her home once she\u2019s been trained)&nbsp;and, perhaps most importantly, power.&nbsp;At the camp, some&nbsp;women&nbsp;adopted&nbsp;it&nbsp;on the spot:&nbsp;qualified providers&nbsp;taught them how to self-inject and gave them the information they needed to utilize it in the future.&nbsp;Others left with information and knowledge that will hopefully inform their future decision-making.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While&nbsp;at&nbsp;the booth,&nbsp;women&nbsp;were also able to&nbsp;access&nbsp;counseling services&nbsp;and had&nbsp;the opportunity to openly discuss SRH and learn about a&nbsp;range&nbsp;of family planning&nbsp;options.&nbsp;We&nbsp;also trained a sub-set of&nbsp;peer ambassadors not only on SRH, but also on communication skills&nbsp;so that they&nbsp;can in turn share knowledge,&nbsp;information,&nbsp;and power with&nbsp;other women&nbsp;during&nbsp;the NYSC program and beyond.&nbsp;The DISC WhatsApp companion,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoveryourpower.org\/\">a digital&nbsp;health&nbsp;chatbot<\/a>,&nbsp;proved to be&nbsp;the&nbsp;ideal&nbsp;segue for&nbsp;our&nbsp;ambassadors to&nbsp;link their peers with&nbsp;credible SRH&nbsp;information.&nbsp;At the camp,&nbsp;they were familiarized with the content and the operations of the digital tool&nbsp;so that&nbsp;they&nbsp;could train others&nbsp;on its use.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After enrollment on the digital companion, women can use it whenever they need it.&nbsp;The ambassadors&nbsp;and their peers&nbsp;continue to share it.&nbsp;To date,&nbsp;DISC has seen over 3,000 people visiting&nbsp;the WhatsApp Companion&nbsp;landing page.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Encouragingly, it was not just the women&nbsp;who wanted&nbsp;to learn about self-care and SRH. During our mass sensitization sessions at the camps, we found that the young men also wanted to be involved.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A young man&nbsp;we interacted with during&nbsp;one of the sessions&nbsp;shared that his sister&nbsp;passed away&nbsp;while dealing&nbsp;with unplanned&nbsp;pregnancy complications&nbsp;as a result of poor&nbsp;SRH&nbsp;knowledge. He&nbsp;was devastated and did&nbsp;not want his other siblings to end up in the same situation.&nbsp;He,&nbsp;like many of the other men in the camp,&nbsp;shared their stories and expressed their interest in educating their&nbsp;peers&nbsp;on matters&nbsp;related&nbsp;to&nbsp;SRH.&nbsp;This&nbsp;enthusiasm on the part of men was&nbsp;heartening, and resonates with our approach at DISC, where we recognize that women&nbsp;do not&nbsp;exist in a vacuum and understand that she needs support from her partner, family,&nbsp;and community in order to exercise her&nbsp;voice and&nbsp;power&nbsp;and achieve her SRH goals.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Over the years,&nbsp;we have&nbsp;found ways to reach out to men in various communities.&nbsp;In Northern Nigeria,&nbsp;for example,&nbsp;men&nbsp;will&nbsp;often&nbsp;sit and chat at barbeque areas,&nbsp;known as \u2018suya&nbsp;spots\u2019,&nbsp;or tea stands&nbsp;known&nbsp;as&nbsp;\u2018mai-shayi\u2019,&nbsp;by&nbsp;the neighborhood mosques&nbsp;in the evenings after prayers&nbsp;in their&nbsp;majalisa&nbsp;(age-grade).&nbsp;We\u2019ve&nbsp;trained individuals within those&nbsp;close-knit&nbsp;groups&nbsp;to talk to&nbsp;their peers&nbsp;about family planning&nbsp;and SRH. In some instances, men&nbsp;even&nbsp;bring their wives so that they too&nbsp;can learn.&nbsp;These conversations open&nbsp;the door&nbsp;for larger and more influential groups to learn about SRH.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Women&nbsp;make up&nbsp;49% of the population&nbsp;in Nigeria. If they&nbsp;feel&nbsp;empowered to make the right decisions for themselves and their&nbsp;families,&nbsp;they&nbsp;can be a powerful force towards improving SRH outcomes in&nbsp;the country.&nbsp;And we\u2019re likely to witness&nbsp;even better outcomes when&nbsp;we also engage men in the process.&nbsp;&nbsp;Armed with knowledge and access, they can steer themselves and their peers in the right direction, and support their wives, sisters, and mothers.&nbsp;The NYSC camps is just one of several strategies we will be employing over the course of this project to reach women, and men, with the information and support they need to&nbsp;be the change agents of their own sexual and reproductive health.&nbsp;<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":44662,"template":"","disc-resource-type":[],"disc-language":[2488],"disc-country":[2490],"disc-page-type":[2494],"class_list":["post-62249","disc-post","type-disc-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","disc-language-english","disc-country-nigeria","disc-page-type-stories-updates"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disc-post\/62249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disc-post"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/disc-post"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"disc-resource-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disc-resource-type?post=62249"},{"taxonomy":"disc-language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disc-language?post=62249"},{"taxonomy":"disc-country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disc-country?post=62249"},{"taxonomy":"disc-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psi.org\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disc-page-type?post=62249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}