Expert says NUHRI LPAY Project Provides Life-Saving Information for Youth<\/p>\n
Zainab Tanimu<\/p>\n
Kaduna, North-West, NIGERIA<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The key objectives of LPAY are to meaningfully reach adolescents and youth with life- saving information that would guide them to make informed choices.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cIntervention 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cLife planning arms young people with positive life changing information that can help them make informed choices about typical issues in life and future.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cMark 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn NUHRI, is about childbirth spacing we are not saying you should limit the number of children they should have\u201d. She emphasized.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cAdolescent stage is the age of discovery and dreams.\u00a0 It is a time of experimentation and risks taking for the\u00a0 \u00a0youth. 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\u201d. \u00a0She sounded.<\/p>\n
However, some barriers she mentioned are militating against youth having access to life- saving reproductive health components.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnother 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?<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is also the providers\u2019 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\u201d.<\/p>\n
Contributing, NUHRI Youth Program Advisor, Margaret Idowu Bolaji called on parents to always encourage their children to open up on issues concerning their lives\u00a0 by making them their friends as adolescent stage is such critical in the child\u2019s life .<\/p>\n
Margaret emphasized the need for parents\u2019 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\u2019s important that parents understand what young people are going through.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Speaking on young peoples\u2019 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\u201d. She added<\/p>\n
\u201cAbout 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.\u201d she informed.<\/p>\n
To achieve NUHRI\u201ds 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,\u00a0 Demand Generation and Service Delivery would\u00a0 be intensified.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Speaking, DEVCOMS Program Officer, Fausiat Bakare Balogun reiterated its commitment to continuously support NUHRI in its \u00a0programme through the dissemination of\u00a0 positive life changing information by its team of well-informed journalists.<\/p>\n
In his paper presentation titled, \u201cSocial Media Strategic approaches in Promoting AYSRH\/LPAY, \u00a0DEVCOMS Social Media Expert, Shola Fagorusi enumerated ways and tools\u00a0 by which life changing information could reach target audients.<\/p>\n
Such tools with which target audience can be reached includes Twitter, Smart phones, Face book<\/p>\n
and Instagram. \u00a0He described the social media as the fastest tool to reaching the people.<\/p>\n
\u201cOut of \u00a097 million\u00a0 internet\u00a0 users in Nigeria, over 70 per cent\u00a0 of Nigerians access\u00a0 online\u00a0 information on their\u00a0 mobile\u00a0 phones and the \u00a0average\u00a0 time\u00a0 spent online is four\u00a0 hours,\u201d He said.<\/p>\n
Fagorusi, tasked Online publishers to strengthen their followership by dishing out meaningful and captivating messages saying, the Social Media is considered the fifth\u00a0 estate of the realm and it\u00a0 \u00a0is wielding more and more followership.<\/p>\n
\u201cFacebook has between 15 to 20 million active users in Nigeria with\u00a0the total of 7.2 million people visiting on a daily basis.<\/p>\n
\u201cKaduna 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\u00a0while Zaria\u00a0has 11 per cent of Kaduna Facebook users which is attributed to environment and choice of needs.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour target audience determines the nature of message to be dished out and the tool to be used. He stressed.<\/p>\n
\u201cResearch has shown that a higher percentage of women for instance \u00a0use Instagram\u00a0 which has 3.6m Nigerians with 40 per cent\u00a0 male and 60 per cent female.\u00a0So it is only appropriate that any message targeted at women would have better outreach through \u00a0Instagram.<\/p>\n
\u201cSame 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\u201d. Shola emphasized.<\/p>\n
The Social Media Guru charged journalists and online publishers to take advantage of the workshop to better equip their knowledge in information delivery.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
He advised that online publishers begin now to give their publications a broader outlook.<\/p>\n
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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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1384,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"yoast_head":"\n