According to the World bank data Uganda is the 3rd country with the highest fertility rate in the world after Niger. Data has shown that the more a woman frequently gives birth the more she gets depleted of body nutrients among which is. The fewer children a woman has the more productive she is. Due to the low social economic status of women in the Adjumani district, a lot of redundancy coupled with the high fertility rate of women within the district many women have large numbers of children they can’t take care of.

Acodev in partnership with Reach a hand with funding from the Bergstrom foundation has successfully reached many families through community outreaches, market outreaches, and male engagement meetings with information about family planning and how it meets many family needs of women and men in the refugee settlement and host communities.

According to the World Bank collection of development indicators, sources showed that the Contraceptive prevalence rate of family planning method use (% of married women ages 15-49) in Uganda in 2018 was at 41.8 %. It was also observed that most low-income women took up family planning methods more compared to high-income earners because unintended pregnancies occurred increasingly and disproportionately in women with limited resources.

ACODEV with support from The Erik E.&Edith H. Bergstrom Foundation is currently implementing a 3-year family planning project in Rubirizi & Mitooma district using a Community-based Family planning approach where we are extending access of family planning services and information to women, men as well as adolescents from within their localities that is where they live, work and meet such as VSLAs, household, community and at outreaches as the core care entry points instead of visiting health centers.

Turyahumura Deusi an ACODEV VHT shared FP information with one of the VSLA groups in his village where he is a member at Nyamirima parish in Katerera T/C called Nyamirima Twetungure village saving group. Bwengye Silvester a member who was in attendance picked Interest in the message the VHT shared about the different family planning methods and requested a couple of counseling sessions at his home to further enable him and his wife to make a decision on which method to take up.

Mr. Bwengye Silvester and his family at their home.

Mr. Bwengye Together with his wife Masika decided to take up an IUD family planning method to control unwanted pregnancies after their 8th child who is currently one and a half years. Masika Jane is now a happily satisfied user of an IUD, a housewife, and a casual laborer with 8 children (4 girls and 4 boys) wife. Together through the savings Mr. Bwengye Silvester now owns a pork butcher in Katerera- Nyamirami in Rubirizi district where he also lives with his family. They have also managed to keep 5 of their children in school and remain hopeful the remaining 3 will go to school in due time.

Masika has since then freely talked about family planning to other mothers in her circles and has already referred Nanjura Agnes for implanon which she took up.

The chairperson saving Group also says that Mr. Silvester’s saving is stable and he never defaults. He is also focused to see that he saves enough for his children”.

The message “Using family planning makes planning easy for saving” is spreading through this mode of approach and has registered 2990 clients in both districts with a total of 73628 people who have been reaching out with both family planning information and service provision contributing to a total CYP of 126,289.2 against 148215 overall CYP projection for the three years for the past 18 months of the project implementation in both districts.

Myths and misconceptions on contraceptives and family planning are still one of the major hindrances of family planning uptake rate and acceptance worldwide.

For over 10 years up to date, Acodev has actively increased access to family planning services and information by women in the reproductive age 15-49 in the communities of Kasese, Mitooma, Rubirizi and Adjumani with funding from Bergstrom Foundation.

About 1,680,000 men and women have taken up contraceptives (family planning methods) as a result acodev’s consistent awareness.

The people in the communities have accessed Free family planning services(methods), HIV testing and counseling, and cervical cancer screening among others.

With joy ACODEV joins the world to celebrate World Contraception Day for a week which happens every 26th of September under the theme “Breaking myths in family planning”.

With the message “Stop rumors: Get the facts” Acodev in full blast is rolling out the massive market, household, and youth dialogues sensation campaigns where both men and women will have free access to family planning methods as well.

Project Co-ordinator FP project (Mrs Hadia Luwedde) explains to fellow staff about some of the family planning methods and how they are applied.

According to the study on menstrual management in Uganda by the Netherlands development organization over 50% of senior women, teachers confirmed that the lack of pads had caused a 60% absenteeism rate among school-going girls between the ages of 13 -18.

Acodve with funding from Share trust rolled out a “go back to school” campaign in the Bundibugyo district which advocated for the taking back to the school of teenage mothers and adolescent girls that had been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic effects such as early pregnancies leading to school dropouts.

During parent dialogue meetings with PTA representatives, the lack of pads and the inability of parents to provide pads to girls were repetitively mentioned among the causes of school dropouts.

Mr, Kizza a parent said he feared for his girl to lose interest in school because his daughter missed school every time she saw her menstruation periods. His inability to consistently afford modern sanitary pads for her every month worries him.

In a bid to respond to the above challenge, ACODEV distributed over 152 school-going girls In Bindimagwara primary school – Bubukwanga sub-country where each girl received 2 packs of reusable pads.

As a sustainability measure, 20 girls in the school participated in training on how to make locally made reusable pads with locally available materials such as cotton clothes, and simple needles.

ACODEV staff, through project monitoring of activities to find out the progress made, Mr. Mwesigye Salven, (ACODEV M&E officer) recorded an increase in the number of girls accessing reusable pads from 152 to 210. The headteacher also noted a decrease in absenteeism by girls in schools during the expected time of menstruation.

Namusisi Betty a pupil at Bundimagarwa p/s (one of the beneficiaries) with her sowing needle and a few clothes has managed to make her own personal pads and also sold some to her friends at only 1000shs which has helped her accumulate some pocket money.

The availability of reusable pads at an affordable cost has enabled both parents and school-going girls to freely access pads and contributed to the stability of girls’ attendance at school.

With a #Goal to increase and sustain family planning use through a combination of family planning service quality and access ACODEV reached
Women 15 – 49 years & men that have achieved their family sizes.

ACODEV for the past #7YEARS from 2016 to 2022 June has been implementing a Family planning project in #kasese District with funding from Bergstrom Foundation.

Without the support of the VHTs, Incharges, peer educators, Reach a Hand Uganda, #Kasese District, the Lower Local Governments, Ministry of Health this project would not have been a success.

Together with our key stakeholders #ACODEV Increased access to family planning services and information by Women in the reproductive 15-49 years in Kasese district by June 2022.
– Increased demand and utilization of family planning services by Women in the reproductive age 15-49 years and men created in Kasese district by June 2022.
– An enabling environment created to support accessibility, affordability, and sustainability of the Family planning initiative in Kasese District by June 2022
– Enhanced safe, sustainable, and dignified livelihood/ income, favorable for the attainment of family planning services by Women and female youth in Kasese District by June 2022.
Thank you? to all who have worked with us all through this #Successful Journey.

We would like to wish RAHU in the next journey of implementation of phase III effective July 2022.

#7YEARSOFACHIEVEMENT
#BERGSTROMFOUNDATION

For about 3 years Kanara sub-county was greatly hit by floods due to the over-spilling of Lake Albert which submerged many schools. This created a major setback in the education sector on the ground. ACODEV in the #gobacktoschool campaign in Ntoroko visited to restore hope to the youth and encourage them to go back to school and remain in school. We also managed to distribute reusable pads
#ULCA to young girls between the ages of 12-29 years.

Group photo with the pupils of Umoja P/S

Over 2,3372 teenage girls have been reported pregnant in Kitgum, Ngora, Lyantonde, and Kasese districts during the previous lockdowns. Unfortunately, these numbers are still on the rise thus the need for increased access and awareness about Family planning in our communities.

In commemoration of World Contraception Day, ACODEV organized a 3-day Health camp in Kasese, Adjumani, Mitooma- Rubiirizi and at the Head office in Kasangati- Masooli, from 24th to 26th September 2021.

We offered free Family planning services, HIV/AIDS testing, and counseling as well as Cervical cancer screening for all mothers in the community as we celebrated under the theme “Centering women: improving access to contraception for vulnerable women.”

We are thankful to all the stakeholders and partners who enabled this activity to become a success. @acodevu @bergstromfoundation #transforminglives

Most individuals at the Community level say, “people who use contraceptives end up with health problems”. Others say,” contraceptives are dangerous to women’s health, they damage the womb”. Some of these misguided conceptions about family Planning methods have caused a low uptake of these modern services such as the use of condoms, pills, etc. Our team in Mitooma and Rubirizi is training VHTs about these modern Family planning methods to enable communities to make guided and informed decisions on which methods to use freely. This is in an effort to dispel some of the common myths about family planning methods.

Child rights protection

ACODEV with the SOCY Project has strengthened the capacity of the community structures through the training of 1794 (819 male and 975 females) para-social workers in child protection. The para-social workers are frontline paraprofessional staff who actively deliver day-to-day services to the community and in particular the households. The continuous mentoring and coaching of frontline teams by ACODEV Specialists have contributed to quality service delivery.

The SOCY Para social workers and social workers conduct home visits and provide services for household economic strengthening, child protection, HIV services, nutrition, sanitation, psychosocial, education service, GBV prevention, and referrals for other clinical and socio-economic services outside SOCY. To date, 51,243 beneficiaries have been reached with services of these 35,885 are children

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