Hello there,

We hope you're having a wonderful day. We bring you exciting updates from the SRHR world in this edition of our May Newsletter. Have a good read.

Thank You!

“All violence is the illustration of a pathetic stereotype.”

– Barbara Kruger

We are currently running a campaign in our communities in the North West and South West Region to combat gender based violence (GBV) through door-to-door education, informative sessions, and focus group discussions in and out of schools. This month, the team devised a two-day door-to-door GBV sensitization campaign in which we educated adolescents and young people about the benefits of eradicating GBV in communities and boost their awareness  on their sexual reproductive health and rights. In Bamenda, 91 young men and women were educated on the dangers of gender-based violence and given the tools and knowledge they need to conduct and promote positive masculine behaviors in their communities.

"Let us give publicity to HIV/AIDS and not hide it, because [that is] the only way to make it appear like a normal illness".

– Nelson Mandela

VIAC performs a range of initiatives to impact behavioural change on the subject of HIV and STIs, including informative sessions on STIs, voluntary testing campaigns, psychosocial support, and STI treatment in collaboration with the health district in Cameroon's Northwest region. In compliance with this, the VIAC team conducted door-to-door informative and voluntary testing sessions as one of the strategies to reduce the morbidity and mortality rate of HIV/AIDS among youths. Through the use of informative sessions and mass campaigns, 92 adolescent boys and 150 adolescent girls in total learnt about STIs, HIV/AIDS preventive measures, proper condom use, and HIV/AIDS testing. As a prophylactic measure, 456 condoms were distributed and 98 adolescents were also tested for HIV/AIDS in the the month of May.

"Contraceptives are the greatest life-saving, poverty-ending, women-empowering innovation ever created"

- Melinda Gates

Contraception protects women, particularly adolescent girls, from a variety of health risks and social difficulties, including the possibility of unplanned pregnancy, unsafe abortions, and sexually transmitted illnesses, like HIV/AIDS. Hence, making certain that all AGYW have access to their preferred methods of contraception is a matter of human rights. While providing significant health benefits, contraception has a wide range of benefits that go beyond health, ranging from increased educational and empowerment prospects for women to sustainable population growth and economic development of countries. With this in consideration, Vision in Action Cameroon (VIAC), in collaboration with the Buea town health facility and the Mile 16 integrated health centre, trained 36 AGYW in contraceptive use in order to promote the community's sexual and reproductive health. These young women gained the right information on the different contraception methods,like contraceptive pills and IUDs, allowing them make more informed decisions about contraception and their reproductive health.

"An organization's ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly is the ultimate competitive advantage".

- Jack Welsh

To encourage frequent HIV testing in our communities and to boost HIV testing awareness, VIAC offered an ORAQUICK auto test training at our office in Bamenda in order to enhance capacities with our peer educators. Using the ORAQUICK test kit as a tool, the team was educated on how to perform and teach their peers on HIV/AIDS auto testing. A demonstration was prepared to illustrate how to use the test kit and interpret the results step by step and role play was used as a means to assess their comprehension.

"If access to health care is considered a human right, who is considered human enough to that right?"

– Paul Farmer

Despite the fact that sex work is considered one of the oldest profession in the world, it is prohibited in Cameroon.  As a result, sex workers find it difficult to obtain sexual and reproductive care and education due to the fear of being shunned. This exposes them more to a variety of infections, such as HIV/AIDS. Since HIV/AIDS compromises the immune system of those infected, it promotes the growth of other infections like candidiasis. Candidiasis, often known as a yeast infection, is a fungal infection caused by the Candida yeast group. Seeing as, sex workers frequently lack adequate access to sexual and productive services, VIAC with the goal to promote sex workers' sexual and reproductive health, educated them on the importance of getting regular health exams and taking their sexual and reproductive health seriously.  As a consequence of two safe space sessions on HIV/AIDS prevention and candidiasis held, 13 sex workers learned more about the signs, symptoms and prevention of HIV/AIDS and candidiasis, as well as how to make more informed educated sexual health decisions.

Let's Take Action!

The month of May was jam-packed with evaluating the effectiveness of our comic book, Siewe the Period Angel, and peer education as methods to effectively teach menstrual health management practice and tackle gender-based violence in schools. We examined the impact of the comic book and peer education approach for teaching menstrual hygiene by collecting data from schools via surveys, interviews with administrators, and focus group discussions with our trained school champions.

Social Media Advocacy

A social media campaign is a sequence of coordinated actions that support your strategy in order to achieve your goal. With the goal of normalizing menstruation worldwide by 2030 and stopping abortion stigma, we ran a menstrual hygiene internet campaign and abortion campaign in May. We employed posters and video optimization, via our social media channels, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Whatsapp, to reach our target demographic. Let us remain committed to normalising menstruation and stopping abortion stigma.

Take a peek at some of our campaign content!

WORLD MENSTRUAL HYGIENE DAY 2023!

We hope you had as much fun celebrating World Menstrual Hygiene Day 2023 as we did. Because we believe in inclusivity in our effort to normalize menstruation, we spent the day with students from Bulu Blind Secondary School and Buea School of the Deaf.

We are relentlessly committed to eradicating menstrual stigma by normalizing menstruation!

ABOUT VIAC

Vision in Action Cameroon (VIAC) is a youth-led not-for-profit organization that supports and enables adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) and communities in programs and influences change in the areas of Research (Evidence Generation), Advocacy (community mobilization), information & communication. VIAC is committed to feminist principles, using gender transformative and rights-based approaches.

At VIAC we believe that reproductive Health is a fundamental human right of every woman and man throughout her/his life cycle.