Donate

Community Education

We understand the power of community mobilization and engagement for societal changes. Our community interventions focus on building knowledge, changing attitudes and improving social support and agency for abortion and contraceptive services. Our strategies focus on enhancing the capacity of civil society organizations, community structures and the community at large. we work with local intermediary organizations at federal, and regional, levels, to create a safe and enabling environment that supports women’s abortion and contraceptives information and service needs. Empowered CBOs, champions, partners and likeminded organizations have helped us to enhance knowledge, create social support, and reduce stigma, and harmful social norms.

Building knowledge and social support

Stakeholders both at the community level and within the health system greatly influence community and societal norms about CAC and CC as well as women’s knowledge and social support to access CAC and CC services. At the community-level, we have worked with community-based organizations, including some that are focused on youth attending universities, to reach women and adolescents with information on RH services and referrals and to shift attitudes on stigmatized issues such as abortion. We have also supported the government’s efforts to improve community awareness and support for CAC and CC services and change societal norms around these essential services. we have built the capacity of Health Extension Workers (HEWs) to implement a number of strategies to provide information on the prevention of unwanted pregnancy and unsafe abortion, as well as counselling CC with a focus on long-acting reversible contraception (LARC).

Working with partners in communities, we find innovative ways to connect people with the health information they need. Our target communities include women living in rural and urban setting, in school and out of school youth, marginalized people with compounded vulnerabilities like women with disabilities, factory workers and commercial sex workers.

We sensitize the community gatekeepers and community structure to secure support and commitment for advancement of contraceptive and abortion care services. As the community becomes knowledgeable and free of stigmatized attitudes women and girls can get support on their reproductive health decisions including abortion.

Empowering adolescent and youth

Through collaboration with youth focused organizations, we work to raise awareness about sexual and reproductive health, including safe abortion. We provide Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health (ASRH) training for adolescent and youth leaders and peer educators for in school and out of school adolescents and youth. We have trained and mobilized youth and adolescents in the community, schools, and universities as well as from workplaces to educate and advocate on pertinent issues of SRHR including abortion.

Building the capacity of CSOs and partners

As CBOs are close to the communities, we understand the potential and the capacity of that and have effective community engagement strategies to address reproductive health and abortion issues. However, only few Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) are working on abortion and contraception. This is partly attributed to lack of capacity in terms of knowledge, experience and tools on abortion. Hence, we build the capacity of youth and community based organizations/CBOs to effectively plan and implement community based interventions. We provide abortion VCAT trainings, support them with core messages around abortion and contraceptives, and provide technical support on project proposal writing, development teaching and educational materials as well as digital health platforms. We also provide them with community engagement tools and materials to be adapted for their constituencies. We connect CBOs with health facilities and resource persons to get firsthand information and stories about women who seek or have undergone abortion procedure.

Reducing abortion stigma

Abortion stigma among the community and abortion service providers, on women who seek abortion, pushes them towards unsafe abortion. We have conducted several researches in different places to measure stigma, and we have created stigma-reduction programs based on these findings. We also provide trainings to health-care professionals that help them overcome the stigma surrounding abortion and teach them about abortion’s legal status.

Engaging journalists and media outlets

We work on building the capacity of the mainstream media organizations and social media influencers to correctly report about abortion and contraceptives. We train journalists and social media influencers on reproductive health and rights with a focus on abortion and contraceptives. We also provide technical support and evidence while they produce and broadcast programs and social media contents. We regularly follow up and engage them to integrate abortion issues into their existing programs.

Digital technology for reproductive health access

We use digital health technologies to share accurate information about reproductive health and help them to access abortion and contraceptive services. We use various innovative digital technologies that range from mobile phones-based SMS to mobile phone apps and social media graphics and videos that put SRH information closer to young people and women living in urban setting.

We use SMS based mobile information to reach university students. We have also adapted and launched Hesperian’s abortion and family planning apps to both educate women/young people and assist service providers with sexual and reproductive health needs and guidance, Engaging social media firms, we developed and disseminated various social media videos and graphics aimed at building knowledge and advance discussion around abortion. Our collaboration with “Letena Ethiopia”- a local digital health information provider company- aimes at educating and fostering open discussions on safe abortion practices. We also work towards empowering individuals to make informed decisions regarding reproductive health. This intervention also contributes towards shifting societal attitudes towards abortion.