The Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana engaged adolescent girls who are either pregnant or parenting on the 20th of June 2021 at the PPAG Young and Wise Center in Kumasi, KNUST Campus. This is one of the strategies implemented to engage young girls under the Adolescent Girls Project with funding from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Canada. Young girls, selected from project communities in Kumasi and part of the Adolescent Pregnant and Parenting Teen (APPT) group were engaged principally on contraception, antenatal care, and effective parenting. The project officer reiterated the importance of the project, the activity, and various forms and extent of support available to young people under the Adolescent Girls Project. He indicated that this activity is part of the numerous efforts to fight teenage pregnancies and other harmful practices.
A youth-friendly service provider, Miss Precious Mensah, took participants through sessions and began with that of Antenatal/postnatal care. She implored participants to take them very seriously since such practices are aimed at monitoring the progress of pregnancy, detect deviations and abnormalities, promote breastfeeding, and offer advice on family and parenthood.
Miss Mensah further engaged the group on good parenting. She explained that raising a child is not exclusively for biological relationships. She said it aims to provide the children with protection and care in order to ensure their healthy development into adulthood. She emphasized that good parenting helps to foster empathy, honesty, self-control, self-reliance, kindness and instill other good behaviors in young people.
Participants were engaged in a session on the concept of contraception and family planning. Participants were introduced to the different ways of using family planning: traditional method and modern method. Miss Mensah enlightened the participants on the traditional method which includes lactational amenorrhea, coitus interruptus among others, and also the modern method which includes injections, pills, implants, etc.
There was a time for questions where participants asked questions on the effects of family planning and contraceptives and many others and were given satisfactory answers.
Mr. Anthony Kwabena Sarfo, the project officer of the Adolescent Girls Project in Kumasi, in an interview with TEK TV spoke about the project, its successes as well as the purpose of the activity.
