Africa-Press – Lesotho. In a bid to strengthen stimulus on social accountability monitoring for sexual and reproductive health and rights issues among adolescents and young people, Southern African AIDS Information and Dissemination Service (SAfAIDS) Lesotho held a demand creation activity for adolescents and young people from Mahobong. The event took place at Mahobong Government Clinic last Friday.
While addressing the adolescents and young people, Mahobong Government Clinic Nurse Ntoetse Ntšekhe showed that there is an adolescent corner at the clinic and that they should feel free to access the services. An adolescent corner is a selected isolated house within a health clinic and it promotes adolescents’ access to reproductive health information and services from health care providers.
Nurse Ntšekhe disclosed that those eligible for services at the Adolescent Corner are from 10 to 24 years. SAfAIDS Lesotho Country Focal Person Advocate ‘Mamofuta Kale indicated that SAfAIDS,
with funding support from the World Health Organization (WHO), is implementing the intervention project dubbed “Youth ARISE” which is contributing to increasing access to SRH services by Adolescents and Young People (AYP) through integration of Social Accountability Monitoring (SAM) and resilience building. She stressed that SAfAIDS Lesotho had engaged the adolescents and young people from Mahobong to remind them of the services that are accessible to them at the clinic, bearing in mind a high rate of teenage pregnancy that prevailed during Covid-19 pandemic and to teach them how to use MobiSAfAIDS Application.
She said their aim is to raise awareness and understanding among adolescents and young people on SRHR and their role in social accountability monitoring. Advocate Kale revealed that the project is being implemented in four SADC countries, Lesotho included and as part of the project.
SAfAIDS focuses on building and strengthening the capacity of youth-led organizations for them to cope with shocks and crises, and apply skills to continue demanding their SRHR and accessing SRH services during crises. She said resilience building to cope with shocks and crises such as COVID-19, livelihoods or economic insecurities, mental health and psychosocial wellbeing stressors is essential to enable AYP to sustain their SRH, reduce their vulnerability and risks to poor SRH.
It is against this background that SAfAIDS launched the pilot initiative and MobiSAfAIDS application in Lesotho to introduce the programme and strengthen impetus on social accountability monitoring for sexual and reproductive health and rights issues among adolescents and young people,” she highlighted. SAfAIDS TLIVES SAM Champion Moleboheng Sekata demonstrated and helped the adolescent on how MobiSAfAIDS application works. She pointed out that this application is a Social Accountability and Monitoring platform for sexual and reproductive health and rights that the adolescents and young people voice their opinions by responding to polls and submitting cases of lack of access to sexual and reproductive health services at their health facilities.
Sekata said all the poll results are used to influence and monitor service delivery and the reported issues are followed up.
A Village Champion from Ha Khomoatsana, Khahliso Masakale (19) expressed gratitude to SAfAIDS for introducing MobiSAfAIDS application to them as she foresees it helping young people get better services at health facilities.
She also urged for the health facility to offer the services even on weekends as they are only available from Monday to Friday. Litšeoane Lengeta (19) from Mohope
village in Mahobong opined that the health workers are going to up their game in offering services because they may fear being reported through the application.
Lengeta also urged for more young people to download the application and start using it. Another young person ‘Miki Mosiuoa from Ha Mahloane, Pitseng said it was her first time to learn of an Adolescent Corner and she feels it will be helpful to young people, enabling them to access services without fear of discrimination. She also expressed joy over the mobile application and urged her peers to use it responsibly and effectively.
For More News And Analysis About Lesotho Follow Africa-Press
