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NGO Empowers 80 Communities In Upper East Region

By RISE Ghana
General News NGO Empowers 80 Communities In Upper East Region
OCT 25, 2016 LISTEN

A project dubbed,“Championing Positive Behaviour Change For Improved Health, Education and Child Protection, is being implemented by the Rural Initiatives for Self Empowerment-Ghana (RISE-Ghana), a local NGO based in the Upper Region with funding from UNICEF-Ghana’s Communication for Development (C4D) and Child Protection sections.

The project is aimed at moving beyond creating awareness and delivering to introducing innovative and participatory approaches that will see communities actively engaging the promotion and adoption of a set of twelve positive behaviors in the area of health, education, child protection and birth registration among others pioneered by UNICEF-Ghana and known as the “Basket Of 12 Behaviours”.

The project being implemented in the Garu-Tempane and Kasena Nankana West Districts of the Upper East Region is benefitting 80 communities by mobilizing and strengthening community structures and stakeholders to initiate and lead community efforts to bring about improvement in the following areas.

  1. Breastfeeding within 30 mins after delivery without discarding yellowish breastmilk/Exclusive Breast Feeding For The First Six Months
  2. Complementary Feeding From Six Months
  3. Practice of Hand Washing With Soap under running water among.
  4. Malaria Prevention Through Sleeping Under Long Lasting Insecticide Treated Nets (LLINS)
  5. Use of ORS to treat diarrhoea and reporting to the nearest health
  6. Open Defecation Free Practice
  7. Birth Registration before 6 months
  8. Increase knowledge leading enhanced Skilled Delivery
  9. Change from corporal punishment to Positive Discipline
  10. Increased knowledge among mothers on Routine Immunization
  11. Early enrolment and retention
  12. Stop Child Early and Forced Marriages

To ensure a shift from mere delivery of messages to actual practice led by communities, a number of innovative and participatory activities are being implemented.

  1. Carefully selected Community Volunteers, 16 Agriculture Extension Agents (AEAs) and

2 Health Promotion Officers to were trained and equipped to support efforts towards strengthening community engagements around the basket of 12 positive behaviours.

An engagement meeting was also organized where a platform was created for Right holders drawn from Mother-To-Mother Support Groups (MTMSGs), PTAs, Religious Leaders and Traditional Leaders engaged with Duty Bearers drawn from Ghana Health Service, Education and the District Assemblies to dialoque on issues of skilled delivery, early enrolment and retention, child marriage and positive discipline.

Speaking at the engagement meeting in Garu, Naba Abulug Abugri Francis Chief of Tempane stated that, “Today I have learnt that 28 home deliveries were recorded in our district in 2015 alone, this makes me very sad, I will encourage all my all sub-chiefs to promote these 12 positive behaviours to help protect our children and reduce poverty”

“We are extremely grateful to UNICEF-Ghana for the funding to implement this holistic and well thought-out project which will contribute to prevent child and forced marriages by empowering communities to lead efforts to encourage early enrolment and retention, ensure timely registration of births so that children will enrol in schools at the right age, reduce the incidence of malaria and diarrhoea cases among others ”

“The two murals developed as part the project, have been strategically placed at the most visible locations of the two districts deepening awareness and communicating the need to adopt positive behaviours. At least 30,000 people will see and interact with these mural at the Garu Community Centre and the Chiana Market which have on the average over 50,000 visiting these locations”. The project will harness the power of Traditional Authorities through durbars and supporting only child-focused festival in the Upper East Region known “Wondai-Abu” ( Kasem word for “Who Is Not My Child”) aimed at promoting child protection through community engagement and family-led approaches – Awal Ahmed, Executive Director, RISE-Ghana.

Commenting at the end of a day’s training workshop for 80 community volunteers, Agricultural Extension Agents and Health Promotion Officers, Mr. Isaagul Duut Kombat from the Kpinkpanyun community said “We generally take a lot of things for granted, now I can clearly see the links between the adoption of these behaviours in promoting health, education, protecting children and allowing us time to perform our duties and escape from poverty. I will mobilize my community to adopt these behaviours, I am so happy”

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