ZAMBIA: MoH School Health Services making headways in Sioma District

By: Ollus Ndomu

As the conversation around safeguarding the future of a girl child continue to gain momentum, the Ministry of Health in Sioma is making significant gains in raising awareness about reproductive health including the usage of family planning services among girls in school.

On July 13th, the district’s health team was at Sioma Secondary School where a mixed audience of school girls were treated to a cocktail of discussions on reproduction and family planning.

The health team’s singular outreach to Sioma Secondary School culminated into the provision of pregnancy and HIV services while girls were also opened to a wide array of career talks.

Community Health Focal Point Person Wilkins Muntanga who is also Masambilo Research and Sustainability Action Societies, Associations and Clubs Environmental Health Coordinator, the outreaches seek among other things to recruit volunteer adolescent peer educators in effort to create a more friendly environment for fellows receiving healthcare:

“The outreach is also meant to recruit adolescents to be volunteer peer educators to provide health services at our health facilities, before work, after work, during weekends and holidays so that those being attended to are comfortable.”

Through these concerted outreach programs, MoH in Sioma is working to bolster school girls’ access to available healthcare services which are tailored for their benefit as young people at peril of falling pregnant, contracting STIs including falling prey to unhealthy lifestyles.

The focus is on family planning services to prevent pregnancy, HIV testing and counselling and provision of Profilaxis for HIV prevention, and rooting out of Gender Based Violence -GBV-.