Healthy Cities for Adolescents’ holds sensitization workshop

The Healthy Cities for Adolescents Project Ghana (HCA), has organized a forum to build the capacity of parents and teachers to prepare them to adequately guide teenagers as they transit to adulthood.

The project is expected to deal with critical issues affecting the adolescent by reaching out to them through the home and schools where they spend most of their lives.

Mrs Rose Joyce Appor-Binney, the Ashaiman Municipal Director of Education, explained at the workshop that due to technological innovations and easy access to information, parents found it difficult to control their children, therefore, they needed a lot of assistance.

Mrs Appor-Binney said the adolescent had many challenges and needed guidance and education.

Mr George Amexo, HCA Project Coordinator said the project was to create cities that were safe for children “which will positively impact the health, nutrition, education, economic and reproductive health of the adolescent.”

Mr Amexo indicated that parents, after the programme would be expected to share the information acquired with other parents and form networks, which would be instrumental in solving problems of the adolescent, whilst the teachers would also act as adolescent focal persons in the schools and reach out to other teachers.

He said one of the goals for HCA was for Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) to prioritize and integrate adolescent health programmes into their medium-term plans to aid in the protection and care of the adolescent.

Mrs Doris Mensah, the Girl-Child Coordinator, Ghana Education Service (GES), Ashaiman, said, “Since adolescents today would be future parents, we need to take care of them so they play their role tomorrow.”

Mrs Mensah observed that the reproductive and sex decisions the adolescent made today, would affect their health and wellbeing tomorrow with a rippling effect on the family and communities they found themselves in, therefore, adolescent issues must be taken seriously.

Madam Nancy Adabor of the Safe Plan Sexual and Reproductive Health Centre, Ashaiman, indicated that, as parents strove to provide for their children’s physical needs, they should also find time for the child to know what was going on with them.

Madam Adabor asked parents to guide their children with information that would prevent them from being negatively affected by their surroundings.