LynnCSchreiber - live blog from Family Planning Summit on 11th July

Juggling
this is the guy I met at the summit David Olsen - he has written about faith based groups and family planning. Might be of interest to you.

The F Word blog

The White Ribbon Alliance

will add more as I get them

Absolutely, Juggling. I do think that it was an important discussion and I realise that it will have to be widened to include the issue of abortion, but lets not try to run before we can walk.

Yes, she is a practising Catholic. I think it is the reason that this campaign has done so well. She is believable.

I heard that a huge majority (I thought it was more than 80% actually) of Catholics in US use birth control, even those who profess not to believe in it.

One woman I talked to used to work in an abortion clinic and said that she would see the same women who had been protesting against abortion, come into the clinic for a termination. When it comes to protecting one's own health, it seems that some are more ready to compromise.

If you don't want to read through everything, I have condensed it a bit and added my thoughts

More than statistics and soundbites

Ok, wrapping up now.

I will go back to the hotel and check out the notes that I made earlier. I hope that the recording worked, because the minister of Zambia (I think it was) was great.

The Ethiopian woman who spoke earlier abut being a peer counsellor talked about her parents not accpeting her decision. She decided to carry on, and is empowered by this.

Then Kokou, who I met earlier (he is the young man on the photo with Melinda Gates and David Cameron). He encouraged the young women to carry on with the peer counselling, telling the story of his family.

His family were against his work as a peer counsellor until his brother died of aid, then his father said to him, 'You boy. Why do you teach about aids, and not start teaching in this house'.

A young Nigerian woman talking about how when she had her first period, a girl in her school gave her san pro, her mother noticed that evening and told her not to sit next to a boy or she would get pregnant.

She is been called a sinner and thrown out of her church for volunteering to be a family planning health worker.

Reminds us all that these young people face so many hurdles to bring information to their peers.

Ian Askew, from Population Control finally mentions violence.

Stats are frightening,

40 to 60 % of post rape services are under age of 15yo

survey shows 30% upward - first sexual encounter non-consensual

every speaker has talked of reducing early marriage. sometimes seen as a protective mechanism, but it is actually a danger for girls.

education - sexual health - NGD2 / school enrollment is rising, so we shoudl take advantage of this and teach girls and boys in schools

engaging parents and community leaders as well as the schools is critical for school based intervention to be successful

Improving youth services / consider social marketing eg condoms, pills, emergency contraceptives /

legistlation around age of marriage in many countries, or against domestic violence and female genital cutting, but implementation is lacking.

Ian spoke very clearly and I was very glad to have the issues of violence brought up.

Tanzania delegate starting with stats.

parents and community leaders not adequately equipped with knowledge about sex ed and FP

Most youths do not have access to FP and reproductive rights services

inadequate capacity of health workers. Limited capacity to provide friendly information

what should be done?

Increase adolecesnts access and integration. Target is to provide friendly services (I like this plan, sounds well friendly)

He is saying what we have heard a lot today. Increase supply, increase integration, increase knowledge in the community.

Very few are talking about actually stopping young girls having sex, or about the issue of rape or abuse. It is troubling me a bit today.

Now the 17yo who David Cameron mentioned in his speech. Footballer and peer educator.

Incredibly poised young woman, speaking in front of so many people. She is happy that she was invited to the summit and talked about the attitude to community about sex and fp

there is no age appropriate information for young people.

whenever we want to talk about fp and sex, the (the community) think it is a sin to talk about these issues.

age appropriate info - they call everyone together and the young people cannot say anything because their parents are there too. She lives in border of town, no health centre, she and friends have to travel to other area to access FP.

She recommends>

women should intervene in big campaign with the media to open discussion

new centres should be build in living areas

age appropriate information, interspersed with entertainment so that the young people want to come to the event. edutainment.

she and her friends went to ywca and to the school to share their information, if the government would support these organisations they could reach more young people.

sorry, had major pc issues. I took notes and will transcribe later.

Now at a session about young people and access to fp.

Baroness someoneorother (will get the name in a moment) talking about UK government involvement

Dfid supports safe space prject in zambia, to empower girls, educate them

Girl Hub with Nike Foundation in Ethiopia supporting scale up of successful pilot programme to prevent child marriage. Pilot programme delayed marriage for every girl who took part.

We must include men in our discussions. Part of the solution and not just part of the problem.

continuing with Zambia

talkiing about stock outs.

We are trying to engage the traditional leaders, and with the faith based organisations. QUite a lot of resistance from churches, particularly catholic church. she mentions the question this earlier about the Holy See and talks about those who oppose contraception but yet actually use it.

Human resources is a challenge. Not enough nurses, doc, trained medical personal. Training people to give depo, as well as condoms in rural areas.

Integrating FP in reproductive health services and HIV testing is important.

working hard to guarantee the supply chain. Gov doubled up their budget of FP commodities. Goal is to increase by 58%.

We need people to invest in Zambia. This is the time to act. Our teenagers are dying.