Adolescent Reproductive Health Services (ARHS)


DOWNLOAD: ARHS - The Journey 1991-2003
Planned Parenthood Association of South Africa (PPASA), South Africa’s largest and oldest non governmental organisation working in the field of sexual and reproductive health, has expanded its successful Adolsescent Reproductive Health Services (ARHS) to youth centres located around the country. While providing skills training and positive rolemodels, the primary aim of the services is to reduce the rate of HIV/AIDS, teenage pregnancy and sexual transmitted infections (STIs).

PPASA, established in 1932, evolved quite rapidly as an organisation in the 1990s, especially in its work among young people. Youth groups facilitated sexual and reproductive health and peer education workshops for their participants since the 1970s. They were also involved in outreach programmes among unaffiliated township youth groups and clubs and helped to organise workshops for similar groups in schools.

In 1994, PPASA opened one of the country’s first adolescent friendly services: the Youth Information Centre (YIC) at the Carlton Centre in Johannesburg. This intervention led to a virtual revolution in sexual and reproductive health education among adolescents in South Africa and now there are 27 multi-purpose youth centres around the country providing a range of services from adolescent friendly clinic services to sports and recreation. A key component of the youth centres is the PPASA peer education programme. One way or another, adolescents tend to learn from each other. PPASA aims to harness the positive influence of peers by providing a structured programme of information sharing, discussion and learning between young people. Lerato Louw, a peer educator in Kimberley, Northern Cape, said: “The PPASA peer education programme has given me the opportunity to work in my community, to encourage the youth to make informed choices, share responsibilities and to be positive about their sexuality
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Men as Partners (MAP) in Reproductive Health
Building a road to better relationships

For many years, campaigns around sexual and reproductive health, HIV/AIDS and gender violence focused their attention on empowering women. As important as this work is, very often the people who need the information just as much if not more than women - the men - were left out. Men As Partners (MAP) is a PPASA programme that aims to change that by bringing men on board through specially designed education and training programmes looking at a variety of focus areas within sexual and reproductive health.

Launched in 1998, MAP reaches out to men and women in communities on issues including gender equity, reproductive health, relationships, HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), domestic violence and sexual violence.
MAP uses life skills workshops, professional training and educational materials to create awareness and facilitate attitudinal and behavioural change among programme participants.


MAP goals
Based on research conducted in South Africa on men and reproductive health, MAP aims to achieve the following goals:
improve men’s awareness and support of their partners’ reproductive health choices
increase awareness and responsibility for prevention of STIs and HIV/AIDS
increase understanding of the benefits of gender equity and healthy relationships
increase awareness of and strive to prevent domestic and sexual violence
improve men’s access to reproductive health information and services
 
Our approach
PPASA has developed a training manual to educate men and women of all ages about various issues in the MAP programme. The activities in the manual are designed to increase men’s and women’s awareness and promote discussion. The participatory activities can be used in both urban and rural environments and in both community and workplace settings. The MAP programme can be adapted for various audiences including adolescents, adults, parent groups and professionals. The MAP manual has many sections including:
sexuality
gender
male and female sexual health
relationships
sexual violence
domestic violence
 

MAP also uses other PPASA materials on sexual and reproductive health to promote the concept of Men As Partners throughout South Africa.
Major donors for MAP include Ford Foundation, EngenderHealth and DFID
For more information or to arrange MAP training, contact:
Boitshepo Lesetedi, MAP Manager
PPASA,
PO Box 1023, Saxonwold 2132
Tel: (011) 880-1162
Fax: (011) 880-1191
Email: boitshepo.l@ppasa.org.za
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Parent Education Programme (PEP)
The Parent Education Programme grew out of the PPASA’s pilot project for training teachers in the Life Skills curriculum for primary and secondary schools. Teachers commented that training students would not be enough, as their parents played an even more important role in informing them about sexual and reproductive health issues. At the same time, parents were expressing concern over the introduction of the curriculum into schools. The PPASA confronted these issues head-on by developing a curriculum for parents. At the PEP workshops parents are given information on sexual and reproductive health, and are taught how to talk to their children about reproductive health.
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Sexuality and Lifeskills Education & Training
The Sexuality and Life Skills Education & Training programme is aimed at providing the target groups not only with knowledge of sexual and reproductive health, but also with the skills they need to manage relationships, prevent pregnancy and STDs/HIV, and stop sexual abuse. These skills include self-esteem, assertiveness, decision-making, communication, and negotiating for safer sex.
The Sexuality and Life Skills Education programme comprises several different training curricula designed for use in community-based workshops. Each province employs at least one Life Skills Educator who trains different groups of people, for example parents or teachers, in sexual and reproductive health. The programme has been invigorated with two new curricula, Stepping Stones and Men as Partners.
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Stepping Stones Curriculum
First created in Uganda, Stepping Stones educates literate as well as non-literate men and women in HIV/AIDS prevention and life skills. Following its success there, the PPASA entered into a partnership with the Medical Research Council (MRC-CERSA) aimed at adapting the Stepping Stones curriculum for South Africa. The South African version has expanded sections on sexual and reproductive health, and also includes activities related to gender equity and gender violence. The first local version of Stepping Stones was introduced at a two-week training session in Johannesburg in September 1998. PPASA educators from all projects and provinces attended the session and learned how to use the curriculum. Trained PPASA educators are currently participating in a pilot Stepping Stones project being co-administered by PPASA and the MRC.
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Women's Wellness
The Women’s Wellness programme in the Western Cape provides women older than 19 with information and life skills on sexual and reproductive health, as well as the skills they need to become financially independent. The curriculum includes the marketing of sewing, knitting, and gardening skills. Almost 100 women have been trained in Khayelitsha in the last year. Project staff are developing a peer education component to expand the programme’s impact.
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LoveLife Programmes Operated By PPASA
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During the 1990s, PPASA's adolescent-friendly services expanded rapidly and by the end of the decade had a youth centre in every provinces except Mpumalanga. Launched in September 1999, as a partnerhsip of the Health Systems Trust, The Henry J Kaiser Family Foundation, PPASA and the Reproductive Health Research Unit, loveLife has become one of the most innovative South African initiatives in adolescent sexual and reproductive health. Since helping to develop the loveLife initiative, PPASA has played a leading role in the evolution of the following:  
Adolescent-friendly services in 27 youth centres (16 of which are branded loveLife Y-Centres that include Body Y's and Cyber Y's and sports and recreation facilities
A countrywide peer education and groundBREAKER programme providing sexuality and life-skills workshops, information, motivation and support to their peers
The establishment of thethajunction, a sexual and reporductive health call centre for teens and parents 0800 121 900
A wide range of innovative concepts for youth such as the loveTrain, loveTours and the loveLife Games
A network of community based organsations that promote positive lifestyle messages as part of the Franchise initiative (currently 96 such organisations around the country)
The National Adolescent Friendly Clinic Initiative (NAFCI) which aims to improve the quality of adolescent health services at the primary care level, and to strengthen the public sector's ability to respond appropriately to adolescent health needs.
PPASA's comprehensive handle on adolescent sexuality and reproductive health is also expressed through a live medium of information, education and counselling. There is nothing more engaging than a one-to-one talk, which is a free service provided by the loveLife call centre, thethajunction, operated by PPASA. With 26 counsellors and six groundBREAKERS, thethajunction fields an average of more than 40 000 calls per month and had to extend its operating hours from 09:00 to 21:00 in March 2003. An internal evaluation of the call centre shows that queries include:
relationships between girls and boys requests for info on HIV/AIDS including info testing
relationships with parents calls about sexual performance and lovemaking
concerns about menstruation and pregnancy same sex relationships and sexual identity
contraception rape
According to the evaluation, most callers were satisfied with the service provided by thethajunction's young counsellors, whom many said encouraged them to raise all the questions they needed to address. Most callers found the counsellors to be friendly, patient, polite, respectful, helpful, understanding and honest. They also thought the information they received was clear and easily understood.
groundBREAKER Programme
The groundBREAKER Programme was launched in October 2001 to develop a national network of young people between 18 and 25 years old who are working to mobilise local action to prevent HIV/AIDS, Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) and teenage pregnancies. The groundBREAKERS go through extensive training and exposure that enable them to mobilise the youth and also change their own behaviour. groundBREAKERS are highly motivated and become ideal peer educators, counsellors and trainers in the Y-centres. There are 700 groundBREAKERS around the country (May 2003).
Franchise Initiative
The Franchise Initiative, launched in 2001, is a way to multiply the loveLife messages at the community level by using the existing infrastructure of independent non government and community based organisations to promote the positive lifestyle messages amongh the young people they serve. There are currently 96 local organisations around the country that are loveLife Franchises (May 2003).
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