25 African journalists trained on SRHR in Accra

A one-day a training workshop has been organised in Accra for some selected 25 African journalists reporting on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR).

The journalists were selected from Ghana, Togo, Cameroon and Kenya.

The training was aimed at equipping the journalists with the needed skills to enhance their reportage on SRHR and its related issues.

The participants were taken through topics such as outline of health journalism in Africa; Africa's health sector; reporting on emerging health issues; understanding health news; and reporting on health policy, myths and misconceptions in health reporting.

Others topics were ethics in health reporting; Africa's policies and laws on health, and creating buy-in for your story, data and numbers in health reporting as well as introduction to Maputo.

The training was organised by the International Planned Parenthood Federation (Africa Regional Office) and the Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana (PPAG).

It was sponsored by the State of the African Women’s (SoAW) Report Project.

The SoAW was recently launched in Nairobi, Kenya and highlights the implementation progress of the African Unions (AU’s) Maputo Protocol on the rights of women in Africa, and the Maputo Plan of Action (MPoA) -which is the implementation framework for the continental policy framework on SRHR.

SRHR encompass efforts to eliminate preventable maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity, to ensure quality sexual and reproductive health services, including contraceptive services, and to address sexually transmitted infections (STI) and cervical cancer, violence against women and girls, and sexual and reproductive health needs of adolescents.