Condom Awareness Week Campaign (#CondomWeek2021), a pre-international condom day campaign
Condom Awareness Week (#CondomWeek2021) Campaign is a yearly weekly campaign (from February 8th – 12th) inaugurated in this year of 2021 that is conducted before the official celebration of International Condom Day (ICD), on every February 13th. The whole world is substantially committed towards prevention of pregnancies and STIs mainly HIV/AIDS and Community Health Boosters has been having a light eye on this agenda more so in youth and adolescent perspectives.International Condom Day is celebrated on February 13th – a day before Valentine’s Day, as a way of reminding ourselves of condoms and how effective they are in preventing unwanted pregnancies and STIs, including HIV. This year’s theme was “Safer Is Fun” and since its inception in 2009, the day is commemorated as an effort to reduce and stop new HIV infections through safe sex practices. Through organizing community engagement activities, raising awareness and breaking the misconceptions/myths around the condom use, and distributing and availing the condoms to the vulnerable communities, the Condom Week was established to normalize the use of condoms in the community towards reducing teenage/unwanted pregnancies (and ban the related pregnancy complications and unsafe abortions, street kids, school dropouts, etc.) and STIs including new HIV/AIDS Infections by promoting the practice of Safe Sex using condoms.
As a response to the predicament challenge of new HIV/AIDS and Other STIs, and Unwanted Teenage Pregnancies among Rwandan Youth and Adolescents which might have been being aggravated by Covid-19 pandemic, Community Health Boosters (CHB) through its yearly Condom Awareness Week Campaign, has organized and implemented a Virtual awareness raising campaign aimed at promoting the use of condoms through awareness raising, behavior change and distribution of condoms as means of preventing unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) including HIV/AIDS. In partnership with the Ministry of Health (MoH), Rwanda Biomedical Center (RBC), USAID-INGOBYI Activity, and Society for Family Health (SFH) was able to reach more than 435,687 people on social medias with the big count of youth and adolescents. Again, CHB in partnership with SFH-Rwanda, was able to distribute a total of 27, 000 male condoms in University Campuses and Youth-friendly Centers.
Due to Covid-19 restrictive measures, at its inauguration and very first celebration Condom Week 2021 was conducted Virtually through social media including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Press Medias and News Papers under the theme “Use Condom, Be Safe”.
WAYFORWARD AND CALL FOR ACTIONS:
CHB basing on the recommendations from beneficiaries and its existing commitments towards prevention of unwanted/teenage pregnancies and new HIV/AIDS Infections is proposing the below Action road map and recommendations:
ACTIVITIES:
- Increasing the number of our beneficiaries by extending the areas of reach (Extension and Continuous distribution of condoms in all Universities in Rwanda and Youth-friendly Centers).
- Conduction of many awareness raising campaigns to break myths, stigma, misconceptions and cultural barriers around the condom to normalize its use in the community.
- Recording and Producing a Demonstration Video on proper and effective use of the condoms
RECOMMENDATIONS:
CHB is calling for multi-stakeholders’ partnership including MoH, RBC, Local and International CSOs, Private and Public Entities working on ASRH/FP and prevention of HIV/AIDS to contribute at their ability in the below parts;
- Donation of Condoms
- Financial Support for the Campaign activities and related materials including banners, flyers, and Edutainment Animated Video, etc.
- Covering the Fees for TV Shows and Radio Talks
Get A Full Report Here: https://chbrwanda.org/download/1985/
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