Teenage pregnancy reduces in Atwima-Kwanwoma District

Stepped up reproductive health education in the Atwima-Kwanwoma District is paying off as teenage pregnancy drops in the area.

The District Health Director, Mrs. Comfort Suglo, said it went down by 5.1 per cent, last year.

A total of 458 cases were reported in year 2016, compared with the 2015 figure of 507.

She announced this in a speech read for her at a health outreach programme organized at Kwanwoma by Hope for Future Generations (HFFG), an NGO, and she said although progress was being made, nobody should be complacent.

The programme provided a forum for parents, the youth and community leaders to discuss ways to discourage adolescents from pre-marital sex, prevent unwanted pregnancies and illegal abortion.

It formed part of the Ghana Adolescent Reproductive Health (GHARH) project - an intervention to improve access to health information and utilization of quality reproductive health services by adolescents.

The project is being implemented by HFFG together with the Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana (PPAG), Ghana Health Service, Ghana Education Service (GES), and the National Population Council (NPC) with funding from the UKAID-Palladium Group.

Miss Roseline Lodonu, the HFFG Project Coordinator, said the three-year GHARH project had targeted to bring down teenage pregnancy by six per cent in the beneficiary areas in the Ashanti Region.

These include Atwima-Kwanowma, the Asokore-Mampong Municipality and the Kumasi Metropolis.

The project is combining the training of peer educators, stakeholder meetings and community durbars to achieve the intended goal.

Mr. Emmanuel Asuah Dadzie, assembly member for the Kwanwoma electoral area, reminded parents of their responsibility to children and asked that they provided them with their basic needs.