Saving Kenya's Environment Through Family Planning

As they bid the community goodbye after 7 days of sensitizing them with family planning information, Rose, CHAT’s FPCORP, could not hide her joy due to the significant effect they were making especially in the lives of the young school-going girls. Just as she was about to enter the car and start their journey back, she noted a middle-aged woman who was shouting her name from a distance. 

Despite that the team, with the locum nurse, was somehow in a hurry to return, Rose couldn’t afford to ignore the woman who had made such effort to attract her attention and now running towards her. Catching up and calling Rose aside, she said “I can’t believe that you are going back, we need you to stay for a longer time and sensitize our daughters.” Out of her wisdom, Rose was keen to respond to this woman, so she said “It could not be better than this, my sister; we have done the most important thing - to educate you. I believe so far and with that information, our daughters are in a position to make an informed decision.”

The woman nodded back in agreement to the response Rose had given and stated that the information was given at just the right time and in the right manner. She went further to admit that since the reporting of the first case of COVID-19 when the schools were consequently closed, the parents had experienced so many struggles in keeping up with their teenage daughters who had just started “knowing themselves”. She mentioned to Rose that her greatest fear was the risk of her two daughters getting unwanted pregnancies, as she herself still struggles to single-handedly educate them.

As usual, Rose remained keen on the kind of responses she was giving the lady, realizing the community so much relied on the information that they receive from her. She then shared with her that it was the parent’s responsibility to share with their children on sexuality as they grow, as this was one of the factors that had contributed to a majority of teenage pregnancies. She then wrapped up the conversation by saying, “Despite about access to family planning, we have also shared with your daughters on the need for safe sex and abstinence, as this will also save them from a myriad of repercussions including contacting STIs’ & HIV/AIDs.

It was the team’s joy that they had also capacity build the facility nurse on how to offer the family planning services to the clients. According to Rose, it was such an impact made within a short time- and this continues to make her passionate about what she does. 

Thanks to GG support - in the past three months CHAT was able to reach a total of 4,982 individuals with behavior change communication (bcc) information with 1,523 family planning clients receiving different contraception methods, of which 1,222 chose the long-term methods giving 3 and 5-years protection against unwanted pregnancies & 22,315 condoms were distributed.

“Childbearing, I mean, if there's no place to go to deliver your baby, then you're the one that's delivering in those unhealthy circumstances. Or if you can't get access to family planning, your chances of surviving and being able to bring your kids up if they come one right after the other, that is what locks you into a cycle of poverty”

 Melinda Gates