True Love Waits – Sunyani

Adolescence refers to the period of physical and psychological development between childhood and adulthood. The beginning of adolescence is loosely anchored to the onset of puberty, which brings dramatic alterations in hormone levels and a number of consequent physical changes. Puberty onset is also associated with profound changes in drives, motivations, psychology, and social life; these changes continue throughout adolescence. Certainly almost all adolescents, regardless of race, class, or nationality, undergo similar biological changes, the beginning of adolescence brings a wide comprehensive change in their bodies, cognitive abilities and interpersonal skills which also brings many vulnerabilities which include sexual orientations, human rights abuse, marriage and child bearing.  But the social and psychological parameters such as diverse sexual abuse, substance abuse, learning disabilities, depression, eating disorders, and violence appear to have become increasingly complex.

Due to the increase in teenage pregnancies, drug abuse cases, the contraction of STIs including HIV/AIDS and other related problems in the various Frontline Church Partners (FCPs) and the society at large, Compassion International (CIGH) deemed it important to create a program in place to as much possible curb this menace. Compassion International contracted Apex Community Aid (ACAiD) to train 84 peer educators in 14 Child and Youth Development Centres on the project Adolescent Sexual Reproductive Health (ASRH) for Sunyani Cluster

The training of the peer educators was held at the Pastoral Retreat Centre, Sunyani. The training was done for 5 days from the 24th February 2022 to 28th February 2022. The True Love Waits project will adopt the Structured Peer Network Model (SPNM) which involves a three-stage process: train peer educators, peer educators recruiting and training peer contacts and peer contacts recruiting and training peer promoters.

Eighty-four (84) peer educators participated in the ASRH training respectively. During the peer educators’ training, a participatory learning and instructor-led approach was used to facilitate meaningful participation and interaction between participants, to encourage contributions on the various topics and to build confidence. The training consisted of facilitator-led and participatory training methods which included: power-point presentations, role plays, small and large group discussions and presentations, quiz and questions and answers sessions.

A pre-test evaluation to assess the Relevant Previous Knowledge (RPK) of the participants was taken on the first day and a post-test evaluation was administered on the last day to access whether learning has taken place.

The peer educators training dubbed “True Love Waits” was carried out successful. The CDWs of the various child development centres supported the ACAiD team throughout the implementation of the ASRH training. “True Love Waits” program is deemed to continue in the various FCPs to sensitize and give in-depth knowledge on reproductive issues to enable teen boys and girls make wise choices concerning their reproductive and sexual life.