The Rural Initiative for Self-Empowerment (RISE) Ghana, in partnership with UNICEF, has inaugurated a 15-member Community of Practice (CoPs) to champion Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR) in the Bawku West District of the Upper East Region.

Among other things, the CoPs are to initiate and safeguard SRHR and nutrition activities and advocacy while promoting best practices and accountability by actors and ensuring increased funding for sustainability.

The members, with a one-year mandate, were drawn from the Traditional Council, Ghana Education Service, Ghana Health Service, youth groups, and the Departments of Gender and Social Welfare.

They are also to serve as champions for mainstream adolescent issues in emergencies in the Sapeliga community as the host of refugees in the district.

It formed part of the project, dubbed: “Advancing Adolescent SRHR within the Sahel and other emergencies in the Upper East Region”, being implemented by RISE Ghana in the Bongo, Kasena Nankana, and Bawku West districts, with support from UNICEF.

The project aimed to assess the availability and effectiveness of SRHR and nutrition services in the communities to improve multi-sectoral collaboration, coordination, and feedback to improve outcomes.

Jaw-haratu Amadu, Head of Programmes, RISE-Ghana, noted that adolescents were among the most vulnerable in conflict settings, and it was important that measures were put in place to empower them and address such eventualities.

She cited, for instance, that adolescents formed 23 percent of the population in the least developed countries, where the majority of humanitarian emergencies occur.

Children under 18 years accounted for 52 percent of the refugee population in 2017, up from 41 percent in 2009 globally, Madam Amadu said.

However, adolescent needs often go unaddressed in humanitarian settings, hence the need to have the CoPs in place to advocate and safeguard their needs to improve their well-being and development, she said.

Mr Ahmed Alhassan, the Bawku West District Coordinating Director, who launched the CoPs, said the needs of adolescents were a major concern to the district, hence the aptness of the initiative to help address them.

Ponaab Comfort Apesiwini, the queen mother of Teshie, lauded the programme, reechoing the gullibility of most adolescents, who could easily be lured into bad habits due to their financial dependency.

But for the existence of CoPs, they would be sensitised to know their rights, she noted.

Mr Ebenezer Iddi, a public health nurse, noted that the period of adolescence was a major determinant of their future wellbeing, hence the need to empower them to speak up for their rights.

“With the inauguration of the CoPs, it would go a long way to help our adolescent boys and girls, in our various communities and most especially our host communities….to know their reproductive health and sexual issues,” he added.