Promoting Reproductive Health for Rural Adolescent Girls

Changemaker: Meseret Molla

Adolescent girls in developing world have enjoyed little on their reproductive health and right issues, the situation will be worse when girls are rural as they are difficult to reach because health and many other infrastructures aren’t in place. The 2007 Ethiopian census enumerated over 9.3 million adolescent girls aged 10 to 19. Of which over 7.5 million adolescent girls residing in rural areas of Ethiopia. Rural girls face many disadvantages. As it is very clearly understood today that achievement of nearly all the millennium development goals depends upon success in achieving the principal goal of the landmark International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo, Egypt in 1994: universal access to reproductive health services. To that end, this project will be implemented in rural schools of North West Ethiopia targeting adolescent girls attending schools in 5 rural schools. Through peer education and reproductive health councilors (peer councilors) program; the project will enable girls in these schools to get the required service including information on reproductive health and right issues. Girls participated in peer education programs will be supported to take the agenda back to her family members and out of school peers to maximize the impact of the project in the project area. Through the outreach program we will deploy peer educators in churches and other community setup to disseminate the information in to the wider community. Concerts and entertainment events on reproductive health issues will also be prepared to increase the participation of community members on the agenda.