Sexuality and Adolescent Reproductive Health

The poster is dubbed “The Dilemma” but for ease of comprehension in the communities it’s captioned ‘What Do We Do?’ The poster is divided into two main portions; an upper part which presents the challenge and the bottom which presents two option solutions.
Upper Part: A school girl gets herself pregnant which poses a challenge to the parents. The left symbol indicates it’s wrong to get pregnant while in school and the right symbol an innovation by DeSMAS indicates ‘what is the way forward’ when this unfortunate incidence occurs as realistically it does happen.
Bottom Part: The left option which is indicated as wrong is where the child is made to engage in a commercial venture following delivery and the right which is the recommended option is where the child is made to go back to school while the mother assumes responsibility for the upkeep of the baby.
PROJECT OBJECTIVES: Training and Education of Stakeholders and Youth in Sexuality and Adolescent Reproductive Health.
COMMUNITIES: Mamprobi, Korle-Gonno, Chorkor, James Town, Korle-Woko, Labadi, Osu, Korle-Bu and Nima. The nine (9) indigenous Ga traditional communities are communities found to have adolescent reproductive health challenges. Various surveys conducted in the communities indicate high adolescent sexual activities and abuse culminating in high incidence of teenage pregnancies, early motherhood, and teenage abortions among other teenage sexual practices. These reproductive health challenges seem to thrive due to traditional and cultural acceptance of early motherhood which usually is rewarded by lavish out-doorings that serve as motivation to other youth in the communities. There thus seem to be a socio-cultural conducive environment that promotes early motherhood which leads to low school retention among adolescent girls. A seemingly cultural practice where parents tend not to live together as husband and wife result in the children living with other relations especially grandmothers which further predisposes children to truancy and waywardness.