Improving Adolescent Girls Access to SRHR

The regular weekly lessons at GPI safe space with centre girls continues to be an exciting experience in the lives of the young adolescent girls and women who had gone through the programme. From the leadership roles they take up in their various groups chairing and rapporteuring at meetings, sharing personal experiences, the life changing lessons on sexual reproductive health and rights, leadership and Sexuality Education and other life management skills has a lasting impact on the lives of many and the training is awesome.

As part of evaluating the lessons, we had to speak with some of our Alumnae and girls currently in the programme to share their unforgettable experiences and lessons got from the regular safe space lessons and these are some of what they had to say:

Arit (Alumnae)

‘I miss the Sunday meetings because it has always been a great opportunity to learn and share my experiences with other girls and the impact of the GPI lesson has built my assertiveness which has paved way for my success in life today, and I have been able to attain higher institution irrespective of my background and also held leadership positions in my schools, church and currently serving as the GPI Alumnae coordinator in my state and as an advocate for change in my community..……all thanks to GPI and I will say keep the vision alive.

Edidiong (Alumnae)

“I will never forget the checking-in session because I learnt so much from other peoples’ experience sharing and the inputs made by my facilitators. GPI information has built my self-esteem and confidence and has made me stand up against patriarchal norms in my community and in my tertiary Institution. I bear my first name against lecturers wish and challenged the structure of my school union government which led to women given the opportunity to occupy sensitive positions.

Blessing (14years – currently in the program)

‘My mum never gave me information on menstruation but being a GPI girl has given me the opportunity to learn more about puberty and menstruation, I can now take care of myself during this period and educate others too’

Believe (17years -– currently in the program)

‘The lesson on ”Rape and mode of dressing” helped me and gave me the boldness to join a team of other young people to rescue a friend who was about to be raped by her boyfriend…..I want to say all thanks to GPI…and please do continue with the good work’.

Social work/Community intervention is one of the institutional fulfilment for girls in GPI who have completed the three years comprehensive sexuality education training at the safe space before they can be certified “peer educators”. This is to enable the girls share information and knowledge gained on sexual and reproductive health issues with members of an identified community especially issues surrounding girls education, their growing up, the challenges they faced as well as ways to handle them.

For the year 2017, the girls identified Mbarakom community in Odukpani Local Government Area of Cross River State, Nigeria with a population of over ten thousand people where fishing, farming and trading is the major occupations of the community members.

Despite the average level of literacy in the community, the reproductive health challenges identified by girls were; teenage/unintended pregnancies, cohabitation, gender discrimination, stigmatization of rape victims, male child preference, human trafficking and lack of accurate information on sexuality education. The girls were able to discuss with the community leaders on strategic measures to handle these problems and also provided members of the community (men, women, youth, adolescent and children) with accurate information and tips on how to handle some of the effects of cultural practices.

Exciting about this activity was the immediate outcome where we recorded increment in knowledge gained and pledges from some teenagers to stop cohabiting with people they are not married to.

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