BUJUMBURA September 6th (ABP) – The non-governmental organization (NGO) Twitezimbere in its project “multi-actor engagement for family planning” adopts a new strategy, the establishment of a provincial exchange and advocacy group to talk about reproductive sexual health by focusing on family planning in Bujumbura province, a check on the site by ABP has revealed.
In an interview given to ABP last week, the executive secretary of the project Mrs. Sonia Akimana gave the composition and missions of that group of multi-stakeholders.
Indeed, she indicated, the group is made up of people from four sectors, the public sector such as the representative of the governor, the representative of the provincial doctor, that of the Rushubi hospital in Isare commune and the sector of civil society such as associations whose activities include sexual reproductive health. Among them, she insisted, there must be those of women and children. We must pay special attention to that category because the country today is made up largely of women and young people and among young people there are unwanted pregnancies in schools and in the neighborhood.
Then there is the religious sector, that of representatives of religious denominations. That is an important category in society, pointed out Mrs. Akimana, to the extent that these people are very respected by their followers, they meet and hold assemblies and if these people understand and pass on the reproductive sexual health program to their believers, the country will be on a good start to cope with the worrying increase in the current Burundian population by practicing family planning.
If we go back, she warned, we cannot sideline the provincial director of education (DPE) who has a big role to play. It is he who provides the data on unwanted pregnancies in schools, which provides information on the situation in schools.
Regarding the missions that await them, Mrs. Kimana revealed that the members of this group must document, inform themselves and identify the obstacles that prevent Burundians from properly adhering to family birth planning. That will involve determining where the problem is. Is it in the neighborhood that the problem of non-adherence to modern contraceptive methods arises? All that will lead the members of that group to sit down, to think, to take up the great obstacles, each in their own field, to see why in the churches, in the schools, there are difficulties and it is after that the Solutions will be proposed to decision-makers, who will be urged to make decisions that are beneficial to the people, she added.