Aburi youth urged to support efforts at reducing teenage pregnancy

The head of the Aburi Sub-District of the Ghana Health Service, Ms Jocelyn Akuffo, has appealed to the youth of Aburi to be content with the support given them by their parents and focus on their education to help reduce teenage pregnancy in the area.

Ms Akuffo said she saw about six teenage pregnancy cases almost every month especially school girls in Junior High Schools, adding that, the annual figure was quiet high to raise concerns of parents and other stakeholders in education.

She was speaking at this year’s Easter Monday picnic organized by the Aburi Circuit of the Methodist Church at Aburi.

The picnic was attended by the Methodist Societies from Addokrom, Pokrom, Dumping, Jankama, Konkonuru, Mamfi and Aburi. They participated in various games including football, volley ball, Netball and sack race.

Before the games, the participants were lectured on teenage pregnancy, HIV/AIDS and the biometric registration.

Ms Akuffo, urged the youth of the area to ignore the notion that when they dropped out of school, they could learn hair dressing or sewing to make a living, explaining that, with the high numbers of school drop outs, if all the drop outs would be learning skills, soon every home in the area could be having a hairdresser and a seamstress.

She said such situation would limit the market and the earnings from the vocation which would not be enough to support them to lead any meaningful life.

Ms Akuffo advised the youth to go for voluntary counseling and testing to know their HIV status.

She said, some talks were organized as part of the picnic to enabled the members of the church to learn and live better lives as Christians.**