Integrated Mobile Outreach Day-clinics
About the Community we serve
The Teenage Pregnancy rate in Kasese District stands at 48% per district health information system June 2021. According to the Kasese district population data 2021, adolescents and youth ( young people) ( 10-24 years) accounts for 34.80% of the population. According to UBOS 2014, a high percentage (14.4%) of the females aged 10-19 had ever been married and 17.9% females aged 12-19 years had ever given birth and yet only 18.8% households are 5km or less to the nearest health facility, whether public or private. Teenage pregnancy in Kasese district has remained high at 23% (DHIS2, 2020) of the 93% total attendance during ANC first visit by the pregnant women being women aged 10-19 years. This is mainly attributed to cultural beliefs, corporal punishment by the parents and schools, limited access to sexual reproductive health education, sexual violence such as rape and defilement, child neglect and abandonment.
The closure of learning institutions for the whole year of 2020 and additional lockdown in June 2021 due to COVID 19 prevention measures has increased the risk of girls' exposure to sexual abuse, defilement and early marriages. The lack of space at some health facilities to innovatively creat youth friendly services for adolescent sexual reproductive health (ASRH) service utilization. The effects of COVID 19 on the health service continuity has affected ASRH. ASRH services were neither considered as routine nor provided on demand, focus at health facilities was more on provision of curative services.
RCRA with funding from Community Health and Sustainable Environment (CHASE Africa) is implementing a program to accelerate uptake of numerous family planning methods in hard to reach rural communities in Rubirizi, Kasese and Bunyangabu district of Western Uganda. The program creates awareness on the benefits of being able to choose the timing and spacing of children and the family planning methods available thereby accelerating access to contraceptives and other primary health care services, through integrated outreach day-clinics, door-to-door distribution of short-term methods and health education by Community Health Workers, service provision and referrals to health facilities for women interested in long-term methods. This program is only funded by CHASE Africa, which since inception in 2019 has delivered over 17,600 family planning services to girls and women.
