A two-day workshop has been held in Tamale to train community advocates, mentors, and school patrons, to campaign and increase visibility on issues of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR).
Participants were drawn from various schools and communities in Sagnarigu and Savelugu Municipalities of the Northern Region.
The training was organised by Norsaac, a Non-governmental Organisation (NGO) as part of its implementation of the Power to Choose Project (P2C), which is in partnership with Oxfam in Ghana.
Mr Hamza Abdallah, the Manager of the P2C Project at Norsaac, said the workshop was to help participants to develop compelling advocacy campaigns to influence policies on SRHR.
It will also equip them with the needed communication and advocacy techniques to help minimise teenage pregnancies, child marriages, and Sexual and Gender-based Violence whilst safeguarding adolescent reproductive health rights of girls and women.
He appealed to the government to prioritise the swift implementation of vario
us policies and programmes, especially the Affirmative Action Bill, to ensure that reproductive health rights of adolescent girls and young women were guaranteed.
Mr Archibald Adams, the Communications, Media, and Public Engagement Coordinator at Oxfam in Ghana, took participants through various applicable communication channels and how they could effectively use them to create positive change in the communities.
He entreated them to create a good rapport with their schools and communities to ensure the free flow of information for policymakers to act upon for inclusivity.
Mrs Ruka Al-Hassan, the Coordinator for School Health Education Programme in the Savelugu Municipality, said there was the need for girls and women, who were victims of SRHR, to speak up on issues affecting their well-being to attract the needed interventions.
The participants developed advocacy campaign strategies to be executed in their schools and communities to enable them to reach out to a wider audience with informative messages.
Source: Ghana News Agency