About 100 Students at the Taviefe Senior High School in the Volta Region have been educated on their Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR) and Mental Health.
The two-day event, which was held on the 24th and 25th of August 2024, was meant to give young people increased access and comprehension of sexual, mental, and reproductive information to make good choices to live safe and healthy lives.
The event also aimed to address the increase in teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, and HIV infections in the municipality.
According to data available to the Volta Regional Department of Gender, 1 in every 4 girls under 18 years in the Volta Region is either cohabiting with a partner or married, The number of teenage pregnancies and HIV infections have risen over time in the city. In 2020, for instance, 6,144 teenage pregnancy cases were recorded in the region.
The figure rose to 6,294 between January and September 2021, with 0.56 percent of them involving children under 14. In addition, 4,348 (representing 83%) of the 5,211 new Aids infections that occurred among the 15-24 age group occurred among females in the municipality, according to the Ghana Aids Commission 2020 report on National and Sub-National HIV and AIDS Estimates.
According to Mr. Joseph Gyedu a Mental Health Professional who handled the Mental Health session at the Bootcamp most of the cases in Ho when it comes to substance use and alcohol are still within the youth as well as relationship issues and depression, he therefore encouraged participants anyone who has mental health concerns to seek help from their teachers or school counselors or any health facility all around the country. He emphasized that “it is okay to ask for help because mental illness is just like any other illness that can affect any part of the human body.
The project manager for the Young and Safe Project, Mr. Courage Komla Asase, said the primary focus for the boot camps was to educate and to intervene on these subjects with an expected outcome of empowering 1,800 people in Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights.
He explained further that the intervention components include Youth Champions, where individual students are selected and made anchors on the campuses who when the Young and Safe team returns to the school to interact to understand the level of growth and the issues that are coming up so that a group of experts can intervene.
In an interview, one of the participants, Peace Tetteh Ahinakwa, who is a first-year student at Taviefe Senior High School, said, “Many people lack information, so they criticize other people. They feel like, oh, this person’s behaving irrationally and maybe it would rather hurt the person instead of making matters easier
So with the knowledge she has gained from the Bootcamp, “at least I can tell it to other people, and other people tell it to other people, and people will help people,” she affirmed.
By Desmond Tiana
