Sexual reproductive health right advocacy by CWIDI

One of the highly misconstrued issues about women development is women empowerment. Many things referred to as women empowerment are not; they are just hand-outs or ‘peanut’ that only guarantee momentary relief but never lead to women emancipation from poverty.   This misconception, therefore, is one of the reasons for the deep-seated poverty among Nigerian women. To be sure, women empowerment is a process of awareness and capacity building leading to greater participation, to greater decision-making power and control, and to transformative action (Rahman, 2013:11). It is said to be a process of positive change that improves women’s fallback position and bargaining power within a patriarchal structure, and identify different causal pathways of change; material, cognitive, perceptual and relational. This implies that any women empowerment programme, project and/or policy that do not guarantee greater women participation in decision-making that positively changes the course of ...

Sexual reproductive health and rights most times generally operate on the premises that young people are engage in consensual sexual activity but unfortunately sexual abuse is common among young people and victims of sexual violence have a different sexual and reproductive health needs from young people who have consensual sexual activity and it should be delivered accordingly. One of the strategy developed for the prevention of HIV/AIDS is the provision of sexual and reproductive health services for young people but providing medical response effort for sexual violence for young people is not majored in the plan because little or no response is provided for victims of sexual violence. Most times when defining interventions for young people, we should realize that there are two categories of young people. First are young people who involve in consensual sexual activity and second are young people who involve in non consensual sexual activity and both demands different sexual and r...

A review of Nigeria’s population index shows young people below 24 years make up about 60% of the population in a country with life expectancy at 52 years . This makes the health of young people very important. Additionally, an assessment by FMOH (2009) revealed a gap in access to adequate and comprehensive information to young Nigerians on their Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH). One of the outcomes of this project was to reach more than 3100 young people with SRHR information. Having understood the target audience and how acquainted they are with social media, CWIDI decided on the use of new and traditional social media in advancing advocacy campaign because young people are increasingly engaging social media for health-related information.  The adoption of new and traditional social media platforms such as   Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp  platform, blogging and broadcast media – Radio,   as a medium in disseminating information on sexual reproductive health iss...

   BY CONCERN WOMEN INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVE (CWIDI) Introduction. Through support from Women deliver CWIDI continue to promote the sexual health and reproductive health and rights of young people in Gwagwalada Abuja. Among its outcomes activities, was the use of social media, through audiovisual channels to engaged young people including stakeholders at FMOH on SRHR using the hashtag (#YouthSexReprodHealth) disseminate information on SRHR and to track efforts on social media (including on twitter using the @abujaupdate that covers the project site – Federal Capital Territory). Also, a blog platform (Medium) was opened and used to disseminate information. In October 2018, CWIDI continued to utilize various social media (Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp) and blogging (Medium) platforms to share sexual reproductive health information and key messages, engage, stimulate conversation, and respond to health needs of members on WhatsApp, and comm...

September 16th of every year is called the day of the female condom. This day is set aside to create awareness and increase the discussion on access and use of the female condom as well as break the barriers surrounding the access to the female condom. Adolescents and young people especially girls and women have an unmet sexual health need requiring advocates to raise their voices and increase awareness. It is the right of young people to make choices of which method of contraceptives and protection they prefer and are suitable for them. This choices should be healthy and informed by access to the right information. In order to prevent HIV and other sexually transmitted, girls and women should be able to have access to needed protection irrespective of their socioeconomic class or sexual orientation. Girls and women experience a lot of sexual and reproductive health issues thus, it is crucial that they are included in policies, plans and preventive measures against STI’s....

Young people need access to a variety of sexual reproductive health services and information regardless of their being sexually active or not. Sexual and reproductive health interventions and program planned for adolescents and young people do not reach them and meet their needs because of the barriers and infidelity in delivering and implementing these programs. Program plans and interventions for young people should provide adequate sexual and reproductive services without any form of discrimination. It should also aim to improve the sexual health of young people and girls; improving access to comprehensive reproductive health services. COMPREHENSIVE SEXUALITY EDUCATION. For an intervention to meet the needs of adolescents and young people, programs developed for the interventions must be implemented effectively. Comprehensive sexuality education has been adopted by some countries and states but there is lack of fidelity in provision of sexuality education to adolescents ...