Home Clinic health service provision for young people requires a lot of expertise and a high level of excellence and confidentiality.
YONECO through Investing for the Impact of HIV and AIDS among young people project, has been conducting capacity strengthening exercises for Health Surveillance Assistants (HSA) that were aimed at promoting the uptake of Youth Friendly Health Services (YFHS) among young people.
Following the capacity strengthening sessions, many young people from the project’s impact area have been accessing services in their respective communities through the trainer Health Surveillance Assistants (HSAs).
In a bid to track the progress which is being made on uptake of YFHS among adolescent girls, YONECO organized engagement meetings with service providers and other key stakeholders at community level. The meeting was held at Mikoke Health Centre in the area of Sub Traditional Authority (STA) Tsikulamowa in the district.
During the meeting, HSAs from the three health facilities of Mikoke, Manjawira and Senzani shared progress on how young people have been accessing Sexual Reproductive Health (SRH) Services in the area.
“Previously it was hard for young people to access SRH Services like contraceptives from us as HSAs. However, the orientation session which we had and the ongoing engagement meetings contributed towards increased uptake of services among the young people,” explained one of the HSAs from the area.
Ntcheu District Environmental Health Officer (DEHO), Bosco Kaluwa, who chaired the engagement meeting indicated that the interventions which YONECO is implementing in the area have significantly contributed towards the overall reduction of various SRH challenges which the youth face in the area.
Kaluwa also added that the engagement further assisted his office to measure the impact of health service provision at community level. Kaluwa also requested YONECO to extend the capacity strengthening exercises on home clinics to all HSAs in the area.
The engagement meeting was attended by 28 Health service providers (HSAs) as well as the Matron for Ntcheu District Hospital – Catherine Mambulu.
Investing for Impact of HIV and AIDS among Young People project is targeting young people living with HIV and it is being implemented with financial support from Egmond Trust. The project is targeting young people from Manjawira, Mkonde, Matale, Senzani and Chikhasu in STA Tsikulamowa’s area in Ntcheu District.
