Nghe An: Population communication campaign targeting specific areas
(Baonghean.vn) - The population communication campaign is an annual activity to implement the targets on Population - Family Planning and promote population communication activities at the grassroots level. This year, although the campaign was deployed later due to the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic, it was still vibrant with many practical and effective activities.
SPECIAL AREA INTEREST
Due to the impact of the pandemic, this year the integrated communication campaign to provide reproductive health care/family planning services and improve population quality in 2020 was not launched on a large scale. Instead, the province launched it in 3 areas with 3 main clusters in Hung Nguyen, Quynh Luu and Tan Ky districts.
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| Deploying a population campaign in Hung Tay commune (Hung Nguyen). Photo: My Ha |
In Hung Tay commune (Hung Nguyen), although the campaign was launched in early May, when the Covid-19 epidemic had just been brought under control nationwide, on the launch day, a large number of people in the commune participated. Ms. Nguyen Thi Lan, a resident of the commune, said: “Although we live not too far from the city, we rarely go for reproductive health check-ups, unless we are sick. Therefore, when we heard about the campaign and a team of doctors from the medical center came to check and do modern tests, we were very happy and this was also an opportunity for us to check our health.”
Not only being visited, examined and given free medicine, at this program, people of Hung Tay commune were also directly guided and answered questions by doctors from the Department of Population - Family Planning on many issues related to reproductive health and common diseases of women.
“Hung Tay is a special commune with a large population and a very high third child birth rate. Therefore, implementing a campaign with many parallel activities is an opportunity for people to raise awareness about reproductive health care. Thereby, it also creates favorable conditions for people to be examined, screened for dangerous diseases and use medical services right at the facility in a convenient and economical way.”
In recent years, due to the decrease in budget for population activities, the budget for communication campaigns integrating the provision of reproductive health services/family planning and improving population quality has been significantly reduced.
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| Communication on reproductive health care for students in Thanh Chuong district. Photo: Manh Dat |
However, with the important significance of this program, the province and localities still focus resources for the campaign to be effectively implemented. In particular, the provincial budget supports more than 700 million VND to provide gynecological treatment drugs for 459/459 communes in the province. In addition, funding for medical examination and treatment is supported for 18 communes with special difficulties. Localities have also proactively provided funding for communes to synchronously implement many activities from communication, reproductive health care and integration of services.
In Thanh Chuong district, the campaign has now completed 1/3 of its journey and is slower than in previous years. However, this year the district has made many innovations in the implementation process because before organizing the campaign, the district had a "cushion" preparation step when organizing a media consultation on the meaning of the campaign and the benefits that people will receive from participating in all communes and towns in the district.
“In the special context of 2020, we determined that the implementation of the campaign would be difficult. Therefore, before the campaign, we had to do a good job of communication to raise people's awareness. We also directed the communes to publicize the entire list of people who registered to participate in the campaign and widely announce it on the radio system to remind and encourage people to participate in the response.”
DIVERSIFY YOUR AUDIENCE
Due to the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic, this year, the communication campaign to provide reproductive health care services will be organized in 2 phases and last until November.
For that reason, in localities, instead of launching a large-scale campaign, communes and towns also organize each hamlet and residential group to both limit large gatherings and facilitate people's participation.
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| Population communication for people in Quynh Di block - Hoang Mai town. Photo: My Ha |
In particular, to widely deploy the campaign, communication content has also been deployed with many innovations for many different audiences, depending on the characteristics of each locality.
In particular, the campaign focuses on priority groups such as women of childbearing age, couples with only girls, areas with a large Catholic population, coastal areas, etc. The campaign focuses mainly on issues such as gender imbalance at birth and incestuous marriages to raise public awareness.
This year, the Department of Population and Family Planning has also directly organized many communication sessions for different target groups to raise public awareness of population/family planning issues and reproductive health care issues.
Following the propagandists of the population sector to Quynh Di ward - Hoang Mai town, one of the wards with a very high third child birth rate of over 35%/year, we realized that raising people's awareness of the issue of implementing population policy is extremely important. Also in this program, although the organization time was only over 2 hours, the propagandists tried to convey to the people a lot of meaningful information such as the consequences of having many children and the effects if birth reduction is not implemented.
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| Examination and medicine for workers in Nam Cam Industrial Park. Photo: PV |
In addition, through direct exchanges and dialogues, people have been equipped with basic knowledge about reproductive health care to contribute to improving the quality of life and building happy families. Ms. Phan Thi Thuong - a population officer of Quynh Di ward also said: "Quynh Di has more than 7,000 households and a large number of well-off households. Therefore, in recent years, it has been very difficult to propagate birth reduction because most families want to have more children to expand their family and prevent risks. From this reality, we hope to have more sessions to propagate population policies to raise people's awareness and help people see the benefits of having fewer children, creating conditions to take care of their children's education and economic development".
In 2020, due to the extended school year, a large part of the communication sessions on Reproductive Health Care were organized in schools and expanded to include issues of drowning prevention or career guidance for students. Through many communication sessions in some mountainous districts.
“One of the prominent issues in many schools at this time is that students drop out of school early to get married and have children. There are even schools where dozens of students have dropped out of school after the Covid-19 pandemic, many of whom are only in grades 10 and 11. For that reason, I think that communicating about reproductive health/family planning issues in schools is very important and should be considered a regular activity so that students can better understand the issue of early marriage and the effects of early marriage.”
With the active participation of departments, branches and localities, the communication campaign to provide reproductive health care services in 2020 is increasingly receiving attention and response from the public.
Mr. Nguyen Ba Tan - Head of the Provincial Department of Population and Family Planning said: “2020 is a special year for the population sector. However, in the context of general difficulties, localities have been flexible in implementing the campaign with many diverse activities, targeting many different subjects. We also hope that with this effort, the population sector will reach the finish line with many positive results and successfully complete the set targets”.
