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The Sexual and Reproductive Health(SRH) program aims to empower adolescent girls and married women with the right information and skills that enables them to make informed decisions about their health, in particular their sexual and reproductive health and their family size.
Objectives
FOR ADOLESCENTS: To empower adolescent girls with life skills to become self-confident, well-informed and responsible decision makers, especially in the context of general health and well being, sexual and reproductive health, and nutrition, to create advocates in the girls' communities, and to equip adolescent girls with vocational skills that will help them become economically self-reliant members of their communities, through our Girls Gaining Ground Project.
FOR MARRIED WOMEN: To reduce unplanned pregnancies and the unmet need for family planning by increasing the uptake of modern methods of contraception.
Both projects are driven by community volunteers who are trained by SNEHA.
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ACHIEVEMENTS/ MILESTONES
The project has had considerable impact. Girls have demonstrated positive thinking, improved self-esteem, improved negotiation skills and decision making, improved menstrual hygiene, and improved diets. In many instances girls have demonstrated advocating with peers, neighbours, family members and even with adolescent boys. There has been a huge demand from adolescent boys for the program which SNEHA has responded to immediately by designing relevant curriculum and training facilitators to work with boys.
FUTURE PLANS/NEXT STEPS
Girls Gaining Ground has expanded into the Adolescents Gaining Ground project and will now include boys.
Family Planning will deepen its interventions in the community and begin working with the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai to improve quality of services. Both projects will expand their coverage and reach through the new SNEHA Centre project.
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CASE STUDY
MeeraBai (name changed), aged 35, has 4 children and is a resident of Rajiv Gandhi Nagar, Dharavi. She is married to Raghunath. Meera and Raghunath never considered using any contraceptive method since their marriage.
Meera knew very little about the options available to her. Also there is a common misconception in the community, that children come with a natural gap, and when God is ready to bestow a child upon a family. Since Meera was under this belief she felt that she need not use any preventive measures.
When asked if she wanted more children Meera said no. After a few home visits by SNEHA's peer educator and after attending group meetings, she learned more about conception, pregnancy and family planning methods.
As a result she started using oral pills and has been taking a regular supply from the peer educator since then. She feels extremely empowered being in control of her conception and in her own words, “ab koi tension nahi”.
IMPACT
- Girls GaininGirls Gaining Ground covered 500 adolescent girls in N Ward
- Over 1000 giOver 1000 girls have completed the program since it’s inception
- Over 35 commOver 35 community women have been trained as facilitators
- On request the project was run in 5 Municipal Schools in the community
- A project piloted with a community of 5000 households in Rajiv Gandhi Nagar, Dharavi to conduct detailed formative research to understand the needs of the community. The community consists largely of migrants from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Tamil Nadu
- Completion of community survey, focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with married women to understand current situation and design strategies for intervention
- Partnership with Family Planning Association of India
- Mobilisation and training of community peer educators
- Girls have demonstrated advocating with peers, neighbours, family members and even with adolescent boys
- We have designed a relevant curriculum and are training facilitators to work with boys, to meet the huge demand from adolescent boys for this project
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