Life planning information needed by adolescents, youths to harness potentials, says NURHI

As part of efforts to help young people understand how their bodies work and equip them with information and life skills in order to make informed decisions about their sexual and reproductive health needs, the Nigerian Urban Reproductive Health Initiative (NURHI) 2, has introduced a life planning program for adolescents and youths.

The program, with particular focus on their sexual and reproductive health and rights issues is known as Life Planning for Adolescent and Youth (LPAY), targeted at age 15-24, with the amed of addressing information gaps in this area.

According to NURHI 2, LPAY is strategically designed to respond to the reproductive health needs of young people and address current challenges that they face in accessing contraceptives.

Evidence shows that about 16 million girls, aged 15 to 19, and some one million girls, under 15 years, give birth yearly in developing countries, Nigeria inclusive. Studies have also shown that complications during child-birth and pregnancy are the second causes of death for 15-19 years old girls worldwide.

According to the National Population Commission, (NPC), teenage pregnancy not only imposes severe health and psychological strains on the baby and teen mothers,but also has a long term negative impact on sustainable development efforts.

Speaking at NUHRI’s life planning sensitisation workshop for journalists in Lagos recently, organised by Development Communications Network (DEVCOMS), NUHRI’s Programme Officer, Lagos, Ms. Bless-Me Ajani, said for young people, access to quality life planning information and services is about reaching their maximum potentials and adding value to the society.

Ajani, said the program would provide skills and supportive environment that would address the views and challenges confronting the sexual and reproductive health information needs of adolescents and youths.

Currently in Nigeria, some girls do not know how to avoid being pregnant as sex education is still low. This lack of sex education has made many girls ignorant, poor or ashamed to seek contraceptive services, hence, become vulnerable to unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortions.

Experts say many girls who become pregnant have the tendency to drop out of the education system, with little or fewer skills and opportunities for gainful employment. Therefore, they may suffer social stigma.

Ajani noted that the society had not done well by denying young people access to information on issues pertaining to their sexual reproductive health, when approximately 610,000 unsafe abortions are recorded every year, revealing that 72 per cent of deaths among teenagers below 19 years were due to unsafe abortions.

“It is important for the society to allow the youths to have access to information they can decipher so as to reach their maximum potentials.The youths need information to plan their reproductive health, because it has to do with their growing up stages from childhood, adolescence and into adulthood”, she said.

She added, “It is therefore more urgent now than ever to uphold, support and promote the sexual and reproductive health and rights of adolescents and youths especially girls so that they will not continue to lose their lives needlessly.”

Also speaking, the Programme Adviser, NURHI,(Abuja), Mrs. Macbeth Bolaji, said the program would address barriers to accessing contraceptive services by young people, stressing that many adolescents and youths still find it difficult walking into a youth-friendly centre even for information on reproductive health.

” Youths need to be armed with correct and adequate reproductive health information; life planning helps them to make life choices and healthy decisions about their reproductive health”, she said.