In Senegal, the Health and Education Sectors Are Teaming Up for Teens

By Amadou Khoury K ébé, Adolescent and youth services technical advisor, IntraHealth International in Senegal Outside Dabo middle school in Kolda, southern Senegal. Photo by Cl ément Tardif for IntraHealth International.August 09, 2019At the Dabo middle school in Senegal’s southern region of Kolda, more students—especially girls—are becoming more comfortable sharing their worries with school staff.“For example, a ninth-grader, a 15-year-old girl, was going to be married off during Easter holidays,” says Samba Baldé, the mediator focal point for the school. He was trained byIntraHealth International to help students work through life issues and connect them to health services when they need them.“In this area, this usually means that she would leave school and not be able to graduate,” he says.“We mediators used the skills we acquired to negotiate with the parents and explain the consequences of their decision. It worked! They decided against the marriage.”Through training from IntraHealth’sNeema project, the school mediators (who don’t have to be teachers—they can also be school administrators, monitors, or cleaners) also learned how tiny investments can improve students’ lives at school. For example, they pooled some funds to acquire basic first aid items, such as pain medication, menstrual pads, and bathroom cleaning supplies. As a result, girls’ absenteeism rates due to mens...
Source: IntraHealth International - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Family Planning & Reproductive Health Child Health Community Engagement Advocacy Youth Social Service Workers Source Type: news