As Malawi’s population continues growing faster, youth activists believe that training youth on family planning and reproductive techniques can help in controlling rapid population and school drop outs among females. Charles Mphaya, a Chiradzulu District Youth Officer said there is a need to impart youth with reproductive and family planning knowledge for them to make informed decision before and after getting marriage.
Mphaya said that feeding youth with comprehensive family planning and reproductive related information and services can help in changing their perception on population and health. “These are crucial issues according to one of our programs in the ministry and we are trying to sensitize the youth about issues concerning family planning and reproductive. “Young people need to understand reproductive issues because as of now a lot of girls are dropping out of school at an early age because may be they don’t know exactly about their reproductive and body development issues.
“If youth are made aware of reproductive health issues and family planning they can make informed decisions about how they can protect themselves as young people. “It can help them to plan when they are in marriage about a number of children to have because they already have knowledge of these issues”, explained Mphaya. Mphaya however, emphasized that it very difficult for school going youth to go for some family planning methods because some education policies do not interfere with family planning.
As one way of achieving this, Mphaya said they have set up programs aiming at sensitizing youth on controlling rapid population growth in the district. “We have some programs in place for example we are training the youth whereby young people are taught how their bodies develop. We are also working with hospitals where we promote youth friendly services and there they get productive youth services including family planning information”, said Mphaya.