You are here

Bissau, Guinea-Bissau. Family planning (FP) is a human right therefore everyone should have access when the need arises. UNFPA Guinea-Bissau is supporting a project of two local NGOs to bring a Mobile Clinic to the heart of highly populated areas in the vicinity of Bissau Sector (SAB) and the region of Biombo.

AGUIBEF and ALTERNAG, the two NGOs specialised in the field of Reproductive Health and equally being implementing partners of UNFPA, have heavy workload to overcome prior effective launching of the Mobile Clinic.

AGUIBEF is in charge of training a group of people and health workers. The latter will need to sensitise the population on the advantage and services provided by the Mobile Clinic.

This programme starting November 2014 will last until the end of January 2015 and might be duplicated in other regions of the country.

The Ministry of Public Health supports the initiative. Health Director General, Nicolau de Almeida, believes this will help integrate FP amongst the local population.

The initiative kicked off in Bairro Militar, an area of Bissau, in the local football field with several activities, songs and a theatre play on Family Planning. The sketch is interactive and women are invited to explain in their own ways how they could approach their husbands in order to discuss about FP. It proved to be a great success since all were eager to participate in order to share their various experiences.

FP services are provided to women and families on a regular basis. They offer mainly modern contraceptives such as male and female condoms, pills, injectable contraceptives, intrauterine devices (IUDs) and implants.

Sadna from AGUIFEF says that at this point in time it is hard to guess how many people they will reach but at least those who have benefitted from the services will continue to adopt the good practices for successful FP.

UNFPA country office intends to go on supporting this activity in order to increase everyone’s awareness on the advantages of FP in their lives.