By Nelson Utip
Media Practitioners in Akwa Ibom State have been trained on the coverage of family planning services as well as on its advocacy and sexual and reproductive health.
Organisers of the training programme is Development Communication Network, DEVCOM in collaboration with The Challenge Initiative TCI. The three day workshop on media development and capacity-building had resource persons from both the organisers and Family Planning officials from The State Ministry of Health.
Obasesam Edet while declaring the workshop open said it was important for journalists who were drawn from the print, electronic and social media to be well equipped on how to report Family Planning services, adding that his organisation was working with some state government in generating demand for family planning services.
The uptake of family planning services is beneficial to the family in spacing childbirth and as a boost for the Gross Domestic Product of a nation according to Edet.
READ ALSO: Insecurity: Senate Adjourns Security Briefing By Service Chiefs To Feb 13
Enobong Eshiet, The Coordinator of Family Planning in Akwa Ibom State, in her presentation disclosed that 4.6 percent of adolescent girls aged between 15-19 years of age and 13.2 percent of women between 20-24 years of age in Nigeria use modern contraceptives.
There were many , presentations some on using social media as a strategic approach to promoting family planning, cultural and religious contexts of family planning, family planning in Nigeria, trends, practices and barriers related to family planning and writing compelling human-angle stories on family planning. There was emphasis on the right method as the one that suits the user according to the slogan.
The methods include pills, injectables, implants, male and female condoms, vasectomy and tubal ligation among others.
The Journalists undertook a field trip to a health facility in Oti, Okobo where clients were availing themselves of family planning services being provided at the facility.
Akwa Ibom has a 32 percent deficiency in family planning services, while the Contraceptives Prevalence Rate is 19 percent with a teenage pregnancy rate of 12 percent, according to experts.
It is on record that in Akwa Ibom State, family planning services are free for both commodities and consumables.
