Dr Leticia Adelaide Appiah, the Executive Director of the National Population Council has called for intensified sex education for teenagers to protect them against pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.
She emphasised that there was no reason or justification, being spiritual or traditional to deny the adolescent group sex education, as they constituted about 38 percent and remained a significant proportion of the national population.
Dr Appiah made the call last Tuesday at a meeting to officially end the Ghana Health Adolescent Reproductive Health (GHARH) project in Sunyani.
The GHARH, is a three-year project implemented by the Pallandium group, an international NGO in collaboration with the Government of Ghana and other partners, was launched in 2014 with the long term goal of improving adolescent’s sexual and reproductive health.
It was specifically aimed at designing and implementing interventions to reduce adolescent birth and maternal mortality rates in the Region and also to strengthen the capacity of the government and other partners to manage adolescent sexual reproductive health programmes.
Dr Appiah indicated that it was critical for the government to make huge investment to and by ensuring that the sexual reproductive needs of adolescent boys and girls were met.
She lauded the concept of the GHARH project, and called on the government to ensure its sustainability.
Mr David Logan, the team leader of Pallandium group, said the project reached more than 386,000 young people with family planning services.
He said 176,000 information materials and books and distributed them among several adolescent people in second cycle and basic institutions.
Mr Logan commended the project implementing partners especially the NPC and the Ghana Health Service for the successful implementation of the project.
Mrs Patricia Antwi-Bosiako, the Brong-Ahafo Regional Manager of Marie Stopes International Ghana, an NGO, observed that the project had increased demands for sexual reproductive health services among young people in the region.
She also appealed to the government to devise alternative ways and raised funds to sustain the project.
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Source: GNA