Beneficiaries of the Power to Choose Project (P2C) on Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR) at Garizegu in the Sagnarigu Municipality of the Northern Region have shared their success stories after acquiring mentorship training on SRHR.
The beneficiaries shared their experiences when Board Members of Oxfam International paid working visits to their project sites in the area.
The Oxfam project sought to increase knowledge and skills of adolescents and young people on SRHR through awareness creation.
It was to increase access and utilization of quality SRHR information among adolescents in northern Ghana as well as create an enabling environment for adolescent girls and young women to exercise their SRHR.
Saada Shamsia, a 17-year-old beneficiary of the project, said the knowledge she acquired had developed her attitude towards adolescent SRHR to enable her to plan her future.
Other beneficiaries expressed similar outcomes and told their success stories on how the project had positively changed their behavior’s towards abusing drugs.
Mr .Mamudu Fuseini, another beneficiary, said before the implementation of the P2C project, he was content with early marriage until he was exposed to the project and realized that early marriage affected the rights of young girls to realize their full potential in education and becoming good leaders.
He said through the project elders and opinion leaders in his community had pledged their full support for the P2C project to enhance the welfare of adolescents in the community.
Madam Assalama Sidi, the Deputy Director, Oxfam in Africa, in-charge of West and Central Africa, said the project was a multi-country project funded by Global Affairs Canada through Oxfam Quebec and implemented in seven countries across Latin America, the Middle East, and sub-Saharan Africa.
She said the project was primarily targeting young women and adolescent girls as well as young men and adolescent boys between the ages of 10 and 24 years.
She said its ultimate outcome was to improve health-related human rights for the beneficiaries, who lived in vulnerable conditions and were marginalized.
Madam Caroline Stockmann, a Board Member of Oxfam International, who is Treasurer to the board, said the intervention was key in addressing adolescents’ challenges on health care services that were responsive to their SRHR needs.
Madam Fauziatu Abdul Rahmaa, the Coordinator of the project at Oxfam in Ghana, said it was being implemented in 37 communities across eight Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies, including Ashaiman, Awutu Senya East, Cape Coast, Techiman, Sene East, Sagnarigu, Savelugu and West Mamprusi, and five regions, Greater Accra, Central, Bono East, Northern and North East.
The project is implemented by Oxfam in Ghana through five local civil society organizations, including Women in Law and Development in Africa, Plan Parenthood Association of Ghana, SEND Ghana, Norsaac and Participatory Action for Rural Development Alternatives.
Source: GNA
