By Adeyinka Adeniran
A Non-governmental health organisation that focuses on Sexual Reproductive Health Rights, Hacey, on Friday said it has so far trained 300 students drawn from five tertiary institutions across the Southwest on sexual reproductive health
The figure, according to the organisation comprises 60 students each from the five Southwest states.
Additionally, the organization said no fewer than 300 individuals selected from various civil societies organizations have received training and education across the region in the past 18 months.
The Team Lead, Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning of Hacey, Mr Isaiah Adedayo made this known during an advocacy visit and presentation of a designed policy brief of the organization to the Oyo State Commissioner for Education, Professor Soliu Adelabu in his office.
Adedayo stated that the trainees referred to as “Youth Champions” were selected from five tertiary institutions in the Southwest states: Oyo, Ogun Osun, Ondo, Ekiti and Lagos States and trained on Sexual Reproductive Health and Programming Digitalization this year.
He explained that the beneficiaries are expected to create clubs called the Youth Amplified Club (YAC) in their various campuses where they will sensitise students in the various departments and then to various communities in partnership with youth from the NGO’s that have been trained.
He said further that the organization had established media labs in Oyo, Osun and Lagos States with modern facilities where the youth can take advantage of for free to generate contents for podcast, online campaign, videos and others for the youth and their various organizations.
He said, “All we are doing is to improve youth access to the services that exist about their sexual health as well as evidence based information about their sexual health.
“We have been doing this for the past 18 months and we deemed it fit to come and give feedback about what we have done so far.”
Adedayo said the visit was to provide feedback on the Sexual Reproductive Health Rights project, adding that the report is a policy brief that provides a summary of activities of the organization in the past 18 months as well as gaps identified, recommendations and areas of collaboration with the state government.
He added that the organization had paid courtesy visits to the Ministry of Health, Oyo State Primary Health Care Board, Ministry of Youth and Sports as well as some tertiary institutions in the state.
The highpoint of the visit was the presentation of the Hacey SRHR Impact Project Report to the State Commissioner for Education, Professor Soliu Adelabu.
Responding, the Commissioner commended the NGO and called for closer collaboration and synergy with the state government in its activities to achieve the desired goal.
