Afrikids-Ghana, the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the Ghana Health Service (GHS), are collaborating to embark on adolescent health and reproductive rights promotion in the Binduri District in the Upper East Region.
The move is aimed at educating the youth on their health rights and to drum home the need to access free and open basic health care.
The three bodies would establish free adolescent friendly health centres that would house them and provide the necessary education for their development and promote quality living standards.
Mr Gabriel Ayine, Junior Field Officer of Afrikids-Ghana, an NGO focused on the welfare of children, said this at an inter-circuit debate organized by the Afrikids-Ghana in collaboration with the GHS and the GES for twenty seven basic schools in five circuits in the Binduri district.
Mr Ayine said as part of efforts at promoting quality education in the area, prioritizing adolescent health was paramount, as that would furnish the youth with the available information on their sexual reproductive health rights.
Mr Ayine said the menace of teenage pregnancy, forced and child marriages had led to the high drop out of female children from school.
He said the three bodies would establish adolescent reproductive health clubs in the Junior High Schools (JHS) and the Senior High Schools (SHS) to help sensitize the adolescents and their peers on how to live good moral lives.
The Field Officer said the collaboration was running a four year programme dubbed “future free sexual reproductive health rights”.
The 27 schools are debating on the topics, “Adolescents should not be taught sex education because it would destroy them morally, and “Adolescent can have the best of information regarding their sexuality and yet still engage in bad sexual acts.
Mr Ayine charged the pupils to use the debate to champion the cause to advocate for the need for their peers to be responsible adults in future so that Ghana would be a better place.
Mrs Beatrice Kantama, Coordinator for the School Health Education Programme (SHEP) of the Binduri District Educational Directorate, noted that the District had a high rate of child marriage and inadequate education on the adolescent’s rights and the programme would save the situation.
She said it would not only promote their reproductive rights but would also groom and teach them to keep themselves clean and help them academically since most of the topics treated were examinable.
Mrs Kamtama said it would help set a goal for them and prevent them from embarking on unnecessary sexual activities which would land them in trouble.
She urged the children to study hard.
