The Community Team at BCH have been working to enhance their services for teens and young adults. We would like to share their latest report with you which explains the importance of these services and how they have been bringing them to the most remote and hard to reach villages around BCH.

‘Youth Friendly services (YFS) are services which young people trust and feel are there for them. The services are designed to address structural, socio-cultural and individual barriers to high quality sexual, reproductive and psychosocial health among young people.

Half of the world’s population is under the age of 30 years and are at a high risk of morbidity and mortality from several causes including sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and substance use, among others. This is made worse by young people not having enough knowledge on how they can maintain healthy personal relationships. This may negatively impact their physical and emotional wellbeing including their ability to remain free from unwanted pregnancies, unsafe abortions and all forms of sexual violence and coercion. Other barriers to high quality sexual, reproductive and psychosocial health include the cost of healthcare, lack of health insurance, and minimal empowerment to make independent decisions about their care.

Youth Friendly services at Bwindi community Hospital started in 2017 with a hospital-based YFS clinic being run on Wednesday and Saturday from 9:00 am – 5:00 pm. By end of June 2024 the clinic was being attended by an average number of 10 young people each clinic day. This is when we realised that there was an unmet need for YFS in our immediate catchment area. It is from this point that BCH in collaboration with our partners (REACH Bwindi) agreed to decentralise YFS to 5 other sites including Kitariro HC11, Kihembe HC11, Byumba HC11, Kikome C.O.U and Bwashwa HC11(in Iraaro village) with a goal of increasing the number of young people utilising the YFS.

Iraaro village, which about 14 Km from BCH and is located in Northern ward, Buhoma Town Council, Kanungu district. It borders with the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park in the North. It is a hard to reach village in terms of poor road network with a hilly and inaccessible terrine. Despite the village being near BCH, the number of young people attending YFS at the hospital from there was very low (0.7 clients per month) due to the village being hard to reach. This was the reason for including it among the 5 outreach sites for YFS in our catchment area. Like any other outreach site the following were the interventions put in place in Iraaro village;

1. Community mobilisation and sensitisations about YFS for better understanding of the importance of the services to young people and demystify myths about the services. Short Messaging Services, Phone calls, Sessions at self-gathered congregations (churches) and radio talk shows were handy.
2. Formation of a community structure; A team of 6 young people was selected to help the BCH team to mobilise clients for the service, continue community sensitisation, provide individual peer support and provide a link between Iraaro Village and BCH team members.
3. An Outreach clinics was conducted where several services were offered; Family Planning, HIV Testing, Counseling & Psychosocial support, Treatment of minor physical illnesses and Pregnancy Testing.

Results from these interventions were very encouraging as indicated below;

1. The number of young people who attended the clinic in a month increased from 0.7 to 38. Decentralising the service to the area has increased accessibility of young people to the service.
2. Given the fact that the village is a hard to reach village, compared to other sites, its performance in terms of the number of youths who attended our services was the best.
3. It was noted that majority of young people that came for service at the site had Peptic Ulcer Disease (22%) and Urinary Tract Infections (18%). We also noted that a good number (37%) were keen to know their HIV status.

Our outreach has increased the utilisation of youth friendly services. Decentralising YFS to Iraaro village has increased access to the services to many young people who would otherwise have not accessed the services. We believe that those who have benefited and those who are yet to benefit from the service will have the quality their sexual, reproductive and psychosocial health improved. We appreciate the efforts by BCH administration and our partners (REACH Bwindi) for the support given to this program.‘

Irraro is one of the villages you can support in our Twinning Project. If you would like to know more about this please see go to our twinning page:

https://reachbwindi.com/reach-bwindi-twinning-project/