Expert says NUHRI LPAY Project Provides Life-Saving Information for Youth

Expert says NUHRI LPAY Project Provides Life-Saving Information for Youth

Zainab Tanimu

Kaduna, North-West, NIGERIA

The Nigerian Urban Reproductive Initiative (NUHRI) Life Planning for Adolescents and Youth (LPAY) project is a programme that focuses on meeting the special needs of youths within the bracket age of 15-24yrs.

The NUHRI Programme Officer Kaduna office Aisha Salihu Waziri made this known to journalists in her paper presentation during a sensitization workshop organized in Kaduna.

The key objectives of LPAY are to meaningfully reach adolescents and youth with life- saving information that would guide them to make informed choices.

Aisha explained that Life Planning for Adolescent and Youth is important because the adolescent stage is a period of transition from childhood to adulthood which requires special attention as significant changes and milestones are achieved during this critical period.

Being a period in which they struggle for self- identification and recognition, it therefore means that proper guidance on issues related to life in general and lots of interventions are needed to put them on the right footing. She said.

“Intervention for the youth has to be very holistic. There are so many things happening to the youth which needs a lot of attention thus a lot of planning is required for their future.

“Life planning arms young people with positive life changing information that can help them make informed choices about typical issues in life and future.

“It is geared towards responding to the needs and increase demand for the productive health information and services among young people within the ages of 15-24yrs.

“Mark you, family planning goes beyond the use of contraceptives. We are not talking about contraceptive. We are not saying family planning for young people. We are saying productive health information and services for young people.

“In NUHRI, is about childbirth spacing we are not saying you should limit the number of children they should have”. She emphasized.

Survey has shown that out of the population of over 7million people in Kaduna, 6million are young people. The young people are very diverse in nature she explained. We have the married and the unmarried and they need different approaches.

“Adolescent stage is the age of discovery and dreams.  It is a time of experimentation and risks taking for the   youth. During this period if you are able to be guided right, you would make it in life but if you miss it, you would miss it forever”.  She sounded.

However, some barriers she mentioned are militating against youth having access to life- saving reproductive health components.

Apart from the issue of stigmatization which prevents this group of people from assessing facilities for adequate health information is the issue of distance to facilities, ignorant, cost including the restriction placed on them by our constitution.

“Most times our youth are exposed to wrong information which is dangerous to their well-being. A lot of them are not aware of these information and those who are do not know where to access these information.

“Another barrier is the Nigerian constitution which says young people from age 18yrs are the ones qualified to have access to services. Fifteen years old in some part of Nigeria mark you, is already married so how would she be able to access these services?

“There is also the providers’ bias. Some of these providers before they give you the information you want, it has already spread all over the community as such have to live with that stigmatization”.

Contributing, NUHRI Youth Program Advisor, Margaret Idowu Bolaji called on parents to always encourage their children to open up on issues concerning their lives  by making them their friends as adolescent stage is such critical in the child’s life .

Margaret emphasized the need for parents’ show of love and understanding at this period saying it is a turning point in the life of the youth. Most of them shy away from discussing their issues as such it’s important that parents understand what young people are going through.

She said there are lots of complexities around their lives and not until they are assured of confidentiality and the show of love (i.e. parents being a friend) would they begin to open up on issues concerning their lives.

She advised that parents maintain a very robust relationship with their children otherwise they would resort to getting the wrong information from outside. Peer group influence is very noticeable at this stage. She warned.

Speaking on young peoples’ primary influencers Aisha said part of the survey carried out in Kaduna shows that parents are the number one primary influencers of their own children. Friends social media and teachers also play key role in their lives while husbands too are influencers to their wives”. She added

“About 55 per cent of Nigerian population is under 20 years of age. Proportion of adolescent engaging in unprotected sex is male 48per cent, girls 56 per cent.” she informed.

To achieve NUHRI”s objective of the LPAY project of meaningfully reaching adolescents and youth with life- saving information aimed to meaningfully respond to their reproductive health needs, the model of Advocacy,  Demand Generation and Service Delivery would  be intensified.

Currently, the NUHRI focal person informed that intervention in 15 LGAs of Kaduna state is on-going among which are, Zaria, Sabon-Gari and Kudan.

Speaking, DEVCOMS Program Officer, Fausiat Bakare Balogun reiterated its commitment to continuously support NUHRI in its  programme through the dissemination of  positive life changing information by its team of well-informed journalists.

In his paper presentation titled, “Social Media Strategic approaches in Promoting AYSRH/LPAY,  DEVCOMS Social Media Expert, Shola Fagorusi enumerated ways and tools  by which life changing information could reach target audients.

Such tools with which target audience can be reached includes Twitter, Smart phones, Face book

and Instagram.  He described the social media as the fastest tool to reaching the people.

“Out of  97 million  internet  users in Nigeria, over 70 per cent  of Nigerians access  online  information on their  mobile  phones and the  average  time  spent online is four  hours,” He said.

Fagorusi, tasked Online publishers to strengthen their followership by dishing out meaningful and captivating messages saying, the Social Media is considered the fifth  estate of the realm and it   is wielding more and more followership.

“Facebook has between 15 to 20 million active users in Nigeria with the total of 7.2 million people visiting on a daily basis.

“Kaduna State alone has about 600,000 to 700,000 Facebook users of which 30% are women and 70 % men. Out of this, 55% are single. Kaduna South has 69 per cent while Zaria has 11 per cent of Kaduna Facebook users which is attributed to environment and choice of needs.

“Your target audience determines the nature of message to be dished out and the tool to be used. He stressed.

“Research has shown that a higher percentage of women for instance  use Instagram  which has 3.6m Nigerians with 40 per cent  male and 60 per cent female. So it is only appropriate that any message targeted at women would have better outreach through  Instagram.

“Same goes with the LPAY messages targeted on the Adolescents and youth. For it to have meaningful impact, well-structured messages should pass through the right channel. That is, app which has more outreach of youth”. Shola emphasized.

The Social Media Guru charged journalists and online publishers to take advantage of the workshop to better equip their knowledge in information delivery.

Come 2028, he informed, the prediction is that there would be a phase out of the hard copy newspapers which signals that more pressure would be on the on-line publications.

He advised that online publishers begin now to give their publications a broader outlook.