 Thank you for staying with us on Y254 Updates, this is Health and Lifestyle Wednesday and tonight if you are just joining us we are talking about community development and we have Peter Ngure was the director of Pathways Policy Institute and tonight we just seek to really understand when they talk about Pathways Policy Institute probably what type of policies are they talking about, what do they address, what challenges rather are they focusing to meet or to address with the policies that they get to make and we also mentioned that today the September is the world contraceptive month so it's going to be telling us something more about contraceptive and what message do they seek to pass to the young people and you can be part of this conversation talk to us across our social media platforms that is at Y254 channel you can also reach me at Patricia Murioki, welcome. Hello Peter. How are you? Thank you for joining us tonight. Just as we dive into this discussion tell us what is the function of Pathways Policy Institute? Pathways Policy Institute is a policy tank that seeks to look into matters around accountability and policies that we have in the country but specifically on population, health and environment so our focus is basically issues around how to manage our population as a country and how our health indicators look like in the country and especially in the counties because health is devolved and then the issues of environment because you cannot divide population and environment the higher population you have the more they need the environment and the more they will misuse the environment so that's what we do but we work around young people we try to ensure that the young people at the center of this conversation our mantra is meaning for community engagement so we look at how can young people be part of the community be part of the conversations in the community and be part of the solutions in the community. Okay all these things that you've talked about or rather mentioned involve they're just reaching out to the local Kenyan person so how do you involve them how do you engage if it's the young people it probably it's a it's a it's a project or a program towards let's say teenage pregnancies how do you now get to involve the young girls and the young boys and also the parents in policy making? The first thing we do through that mantra community engagement we try to look even when we are starting our project we ask ourselves where is the challenge and we ask the young people where is the challenge that you're facing at this juncture like currently the biggest challenge among young people has been unemployment as the first biggest challenge and then the issues around teenage pregnancy as sexual reproductive health issues and then drugs so for us we've been looking when we talk to young people then they tell you these are the issues that we are facing and then we come back with data because as a policy pink tank we also have access to some of the data that maybe the young people may not access you have access to government systems we can be able to see what are the challenges like currently we can be able to look at Nairobi and see uh the under 15 year olds who are receiving contraceptives they under 19 year olds who are going for family planning and then we can have a conversation why is this a challenge and what can we do to help and we ask the young people to give their solutions because the young people know what they need they don't need to be told fanyani ifi fanyani ifi they know what they want all the luck is what we call an agency and so Padwes is an agency for young people to be able to voice their concerns if it's the issue of drugs they know where the drugs are sold uh the government may not really know where where are the drugs in Ghidorai where are the drugs in Majango in Likipia where are the drugs in Bangladesh in Mombasa but the young people know so if they can partner with the young people then we can be able to eradicate such advice if it's a issue of where unsafe abortions happens in the country then people know young girls know where they go to seek these services so we can be able to reverse all these challenges that young people face if we involve them talk to them and look for solutions through them you've talked about unemployment being one of the major problems that young people in this country are facing and it's something that has been talked about in most likely every platform that has been there that targets probably to address something young people what what what is your thoughts on that unemployment among the young people of this country and you know unemployment is something that is there globally and especially employment of young people because of the the skills and the experience that is required for us to get a job so you will always find a larger number of young people being unemployed globally than the older populations but the hope is that in the countries that are developed the hope is that you can be able to get these young people getting into the system as apprentices, as internships and then they can learn and by the time they are turning 35 they have been absorbed fully in the system but in our country we have that challenge that we have no clear structures actually this is the first tier that the government has a very clear structure of internship by the way we are able to take about 15,000 young people into various ministries and these young people are being absorbed they are learning and then the hope was that after one year they can be absorbed fully into into government so that's that's a good way of dealing with young people but also our education system giving young people we have done so much theory and we have missed on the on the practical side and this is a challenge because then you look at today I was watching Muhtay say if we can get young people making PPEs in this country they are a bit cheaper than when we are buying from from China from wherever and if you look at some counties they have actually invested in this for instance for like Kipia there is a guy who is making toys you know these dolis that young girls play with making them look earlier than importing the the white ones that come from China so those are the kind of things we try to to look and say where can you and as a police think tank then we help government think in that direction okay so ours is not really to hold the young person hand and show him the business we talk to government so that there's an environment that is conducive for young people but we're also happy this year about Kazim Tani of all the projects that government has run before and I know a lot of people have issues with it this project has employed quite a large number of young people and the money that they are given the 455 they can actually be able to invest this money into productive so there's there's change that is happening it's a bit slow than we would want but yeah but it's because our youth population is really big yeah uh before we get to talk probably about any the contraceptive uh uh wild month what is tell us about the ikopoa project by pathways a pathways runs a project called ikopoa iko is a a coin iko is a kisuhiliwa we coined it roughly to mean the aris so we look at we say the aris uh a bold health worker we call it iko the bold health worker project bold health this country has had a challenge of health workers not being bold enough to offer services to young people because of the backlash by the church because of the backlash by the parents because of the backlash by uh service delivery and even because of distances where the young people you know young people do not want to come to a health facility and say ah I have this challenge there are many challenges that young people have sometimes they're just seeking information and they look around and see the person who is giving information is there aren't in the facility especially in rural areas and they're scared the stories are going to spread yes someone will is the person who collects tide in your church who is coming to give you services you can't ask for family planning or contraceptive or even information just basic information about STIs so what we are looking for in iko is that we are asking young people do you know one one health worker who is bold enough to offer services to you at your convenient either the we have identified health workers who have formed what's up groups like in Ghedurahi, West Pukot and in Laikipia when they chat with young people even in the evening because young people will not come to the facility at 9 at 10 in the day they would want to the time they are free maybe from college or from school is in the evening most facilities level 2 level 1 are closed so this health workers chat with them on phone there is one in West Pukot who uses border border and moves to where the young people are and takes commodities to them so we are appreciating this kind of people with a token we give them a token of a cash but we also give them a mag that is written you're a bold health worker and give them a badge just appreciating and recognizing them and it's really changing the way young people and health workers relate okay what plants do you have for world contraceptive month 30 september and what message are you hoping to to pass to people and as far as we know this is these targets the young people I would like us to also talk about institutions and people whose perception about contraceptive and opinions have really gone again is that what message do you seek to pass september as I mentioned is a world contraception month and we we have a lot of conversations around contraception and around family planning as a whole and to started about 10 years ago and the conversation has been ongoing and for the last three years the the themes have been around it's your your choice is your right it's your body make good choices around your body and if you look at the country as a background the country contraceptive prevalence rate which means the number of people who are accessing contraceptives who want to access contraceptive and are accessing is about 56 percent and that means there is a whole population of people who don't access contraceptives in this country so in demand we will be having more and more conversations around what is the benefits of family planning what is the benefits of young people delaying their first delaying their sexual debut but if they can delay their sexual debut they will engage in sex how how important is it for them to delay giving birth to the first child until maybe they are through with college or until they are ready for that responsibility you know that kind of conversation so we will be having those conversations with young people this year and hoping that they can they can be able to voice their needs to the government because right now there is the reproductive health bill which is the senate and there is a lot of backlash and bad conversations around it because no one has really talked about the benefits of contraceptives so in the whole month we'll be having that conversation and on 20th of september it's called the world uh world female condom day we have a conversation around the female condom it's not a conversation that many people want to have and of course the female condom is a bit more expensive than the male condom so we should have a conversation like why is there gender disparity that the male condom is cheaper than the female condom why why isn't it accessible to all the young people who would want to use it and we'll still have conversation on the 26th on the world contraception day on the other methods of family planning that young people and even older people can use to be able to manage their families not to limit their families but just to space their families so that then you can be able to get the children that you can manage to bring up but also you can be able to have the health of the mother and the child being well because if you space for like three to five years between one child and the other we know the child will have breastfed fully well and you know the mother will have restored her health and then she can be able and ready to get another child so that's a conversation we will be having around the month okay now we have institutions as I mentioned earlier that are against contraceptives what are you doing probably to liens together with these people to try and tell them it is okay probably to give these contraceptives to these young people to help them probably not make certain choices that could mess up their future what are your plans or strategies to make sure that you bring these institutions the society together in the fight or rather in the creating awareness of contraceptives in the country we are we are trying very much as civil society organizations first to come together as as NGOs and agree on what messages we want to send to to to the young people and the country into the government but we also know our adversaries the the cultural groups and the religious groups we are hoping in the next one month to have a good conversation especially because of that bill at the senate we're hoping to have a conversation with the religious leaders they also have a point sometimes they ask questions and uh it it's legitimate for them to ask questions like the questions around values when did our values disappear so that uh the teen year olds are just having sex freely yeah and we're telling them to use contraceptives yeah and no one is worrying about it so we want to have this conversation and see has the church failed have the cultural leaders failed so what is their role and how should they guide children have parents failed right now parents are having a lot of pressure because they were used to teachers taking care of their roles now it's turned back because of covid now parents have to take care yeah so how do parents have a conversation about sexuality with their children and unlike before when children would wait until 15 16 before when they start having the menstrual uh you know psychos and stuff 10 years so how do you as a parent as a church leader as a cultural leader start having this conversation and for us who have come out broad and said this is a conversation we want to have we want to bring them on board and let's talk about these things okay let's agree on a on a ground that first there's nothing we can do about the the 3000 girls in Nairobi who are pregnant in the last so we need to take care of that generation and it means if 3000 got pregnant this is just maybe two percent of the percentage of those who are having sex so how do we have this conversation okay the other thing is that we realize that there's a lot of conversation around teenage pregnancy that is focused on you and the girl yeah the boy child is left out and 61 percent of the pregnancies uh with teenage girls across my teenage boys the boda boda guys around home the guys who sell mtumba those uh to stalls those are young people who are doing a lot of businesses at home and we need to have this conversation with them so they trying to we we as a society have to try and bring ourselves together and have a non-est conversation the problem is that the moment you start this conversation with some people they bring a lot of traditional values and traditional morals that are not playing out today so we want to have a non-est conversation and say let us allow our young people have first the information so that they know and studies have shown that if you give young people information about sexuality contraceptives they delay engaging in sex by three years so there is value in having this conversation and then we can give them commodities if they want later on okay thank you very much peter but before we wind up uh social media uh platforms where people would like to know more about pathway institute just like two seconds yeah if you do want to reach us you can reach us on uh our website is www.pathway not pathways pathway not co.ke you can reach us at uh twitter public pathways and you can reach us on uh facebook public pathways you can reach me at peter angure that's my twitter handle and we can have these conversations going for okay thank you very much and i wish you are the best in uh community development as you continue to pass across message to young people and also to our elderly people that we get to create young people who are well informed thank you very much for joining us tonight my name is patricia muriuki do have yourselves a very good night