HYDERABAD: Although Telangana sees 23.5% of women get married before the age of 18, with most child marriages taking place in parts of Hyderabad and districts, experts say that there is a need to spread awareness on reproductive health among the youth and adolescents.
Speaking at the launch of ‘Momentum Country and Global Leadership: India-Yash’, an initiative to engage adolescents and youth in taking decisions with respect to their reproductive health and well-being, experts pointed out the need to increase awareness about family planning (FP) and reproductive health (RH).
The initiative was launched by the US Agency for International Development (USAID). “Through this four-year project, India-Yash will focus on family planning and reproductive health for those in the age group of 10 to 29 years and leave behind scalable and sustainable models for young people to take charge of their sexual and reproductive well-being,” said Dr Koki Agarwal, director, Momentum Country and Global leadership.
One of the key highlights of the initiative which sets it apart from many others is that it includes the much neglected 10 to 15-year- olds in the dialogue on sexual and reproductive health, who are often left behind. It will be done by involving youngsters in identifying problems specific to these age groups and designing solutions for the same. “The project will support the FP/RH needs of India’s marginalized youth in urban and rural areas of Assam, Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh in the first phase and later on it will be replicated in other parts of the country,” said Sangita Patel, director, health office, USAID/India, adding that although Telangana is better placed than many other states, more awareness is needed.
To include the youngsters in the dialogue, an innovation challenge will be held to invite ideas, hand-hold them and provide incubation support to help them turn into scalable models. “With this we will bring about a shift in power dynamics from health market players to clients (young people) and support an enabling environment for adolescent and youth-friendly health services,” said Dr Somesh Kumar, country director, Jhpiego India.
