In the Pacific region, significant progress has been made towards achieving the Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) goals embedded in international commitments. Despite this progress, immense challenges remain and overall, in many Pacific Island countries and territories, poverty, vulnerability and exclusion are on the rise. Specific SRHR issues in the Pacific region include endemic levels of gender-based violence, low contraceptive prevalence rates (below 50 per cent across the Pacific), stigmatisation, discrimination, a lack of confidentiality in many health services and hyperendemic levels of sexually transmitted infections.
The Pacific Community’s (SPC) Pacific People Advancing Change (PPAC) programme is supporting Pacific Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) to enhance communities’ sexual and reproductive health (SRH). PPAC partnerships with Solomon Islands Planned Parenthood Association (SIPPA) and the Tuvalu Family Health Association (TuFHA) illustrate how SPC’s technical and financial support to Pacific CSOs is greatly contributing to raising awareness of SRHR at the community level.
SRHR behaviour change interventions in Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands faces major challenges when it comes to sexual and reproductive health, especially for women. These are key issue that SIPPA, the leading NGO providing Sexual & Reproductive Health & Family Planning information and services in Solomon Islands, is tackling through service delivery, advocacy and targeted educational campaigns.
“Being empowered with SRHR information enables me to share correct information about the SRH problems affecting young people in the community e.g., diseases and prevention. Today, young people in our community have been equipped with the correct information and are invoved in safe sex practices e.g., Abstaining from sex, using condoms during sex, and are willing to attend and seek help from Clinics”, said one of the young men who attended a comprehensive sex education and SRHR training.
This workshop, attended by 40 young people, was organised by the SIPPA team, as part of the PPAC programme , to empower young people on their sexual and reproductive health rights in four target communities in Malaita province, the most populous and one of the largest of the nine provinces in the country. Other behaviour change activities carried out in the same locations, thanks to PPAC support, include consultation meetings with community leaders, SRHR and gender-based violence awareness raising.
SIPPA is continuing its campaigns under PPAC in 2024, where it hopes to reach even more people and communities with this critical outreach.
A peer education programme in Tuvalu
In Tuvalu, we worked with TuFHA, the Pacific Island’s leading non-governmental organisation (NGO) promoting and providing sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services. TuFHA serves a population of 10,000 through one permanent clinic and five community-based distributors/community-based services. Central to the organisation’s efforts is the dissemination of SRHR information to specific vulnerable and underserved communities. This work is key in Tuvalu, where women of reproductive age (15-49 years) often face barriers with respect to their sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). Although data is very limited.
Thanks to PPAC programme support, TuFHA strengthened its peer education programme to include primary, secondary, and vocational students. The programme aims to increase SRHR awareness in schools in Funafuti, Tuvalu’s capital. It also supports youths, women, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer, asexual and other sexually or gender diverse (LGBTQI+) communities and those living in remote areas (outer islands). TuFHA built its youth network by recruiting and training 25 peer educators and other association members on SRHR. Young people from community groups, churches, and sports associations were invited to take part in the training. They were equipped with skills and knowledge in various topics, including data collection tools, outreach and communications skills, and referral pathways. They developed key messages for information, education, and communication (IEC) activities, as well as IEC materials.
The collaboration between TuFHA and the Department of Public Health, STI and HIV Unit and Gender Affairs Department at the Ministry of Health was essential in ensuring the success of this activity. As a result, the newly trained peer educators visited schools in Funafuti, to raise the students’ awareness of SRHR. The PPAC grant also enabled TuFHA to enhance and strengthen both its internal reporting system and its operation efficiency and effectiveness through improved systems and learning.
The PPAC programme continues to support SRHR campaigns in 2024; in Solomon Islands, SIPPA, Girls Wholeness Solomon Islands, and Renbel Provincial Council of Women are conducting campaigns on SRHR, sexual violence against girls, and teenage pregnancy, respectively.
HRSD’s Pacific People Advancing Change (PPAC) programme aims to build advocacy capacity among Pacific Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) engaged with human rights issues, while advancing those issues by supporting specific campaigns. It is funded by the EU Spotlight Initiative, USAID and the Governments of Australia and Sweden.
