NGO's advised to delve more into rural areas with SRH projects

Kumasi, May 15, GNA - Mr Akwasi Boakye-Yiadom, the Director of Programmes at the Headquarters of the Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana (PPAG), has suggested to non-governmental organisations and donor agencies to look beyond urban centres when planning projects on Sexual Reproductive Health (SRH).

He said rural dwellers, unlike their urban counterparts, have very little access to information on SRH and should therefore be a focal point of most NGOs.

Mr Boakye-Yiadom made the suggestion at the opening session of a two-day congress of the Youth in Action Movement (YAM), a youth wing of the PPAG in Kumasi at the weekend.

He said the Ghana Demographic Health Survey for 2003 showed that 22 percent of adolescents in rural area had begun child bearing while seven percent did so in the urban centres.

"This is a clear manifestation of the fact that rural communities are more deprived of information on SRH and for that matter need to be attended to more", Mr Boakye-Yiadom said. Miss Aku Xornam Adzraku, National Co-ordinator of the YAM, said it is the determination and plan of the YAM to extend its activities more to benefit the illiterate youth.

She said it has come to the realisation of YAM that because such youth are uneducated, their access to information on SRH and services was impeded. Dr Frances Daaku, National President of the PPAG, appealed to the YAM not just to confine its outreach programmes to the youth but also extend them to adults as well.