Some beneficiaries of family planning services provided by Urban Reproductive Health Initiative (NURHI) in Giwa Local Government Area of Kaduna State have commended the organisation for improving the quality of their lives.
The rural women, who gave the commendation in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Giwa on Monday, described the family planning services as ‘life-saving’.
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They urged the state government to strengthen partnership with the NGO and extend the project to reach more women with the needed awareness and services to save more lives and improve their quality of life.
NAN reports that the NURHI II project has ended after six years of family planning intervention that targets rural and urban women in Kaduna State.
One of the women, Mrs Zuhaitu Aliyu, a mother of five, said the intervention by NURHI had led to an increase of the number of women seeking family planning services in the community.
“I had six children but five are alive because I didn’t start family planning on time due to ignorance.
“My first three children were having one-year interval because of lack of family planning experience, but after NURHl’s intervention, I am able to space at three years interval.
“I want the state government to extend this project so that there will be a reduction in unwanted pregnancies and death in the state.”
Also, Ladidi Mallam , a mother of four, said NURHI’s project in rural communities especially where early marriage is of high priority has helped them.
“I married at the age of 15 and was opportuned to get enlightened about family planning early, so I spaced my children with three years interval.
“My children are healthy today after spacing for three years because of NURHI’s project and I didn’t find difficulties in bringing them up.”
Fatima Musa, a mother of seven said she embraced family planning late.
“I married early and there was no one to enlighten me on family planning; I started spacing when I gave birth to my fourth child.
“Embracing it now makes me realise its importance, the last two children are all growing well and I have no challenge in taking care of them.”
A family planning provider, Aisha Sani, appealed to the state government to support primary health care centres to run family planning services as NUHRI wraps up its activities in the state.
“I am appealing to the state government to also key into the methods being used by the NGO to achieve its objectives or to reintroduce NURHi III, for rural women to benefit more.
”NURHi did a great job that the government needs to bring them back again to continue for the benefit of rural women.
“Both men and women in Giwa LGA have embraced family planning massively because it is free and we do not have problem with consumables’’ she said.
She lauded the activities of NURHI in sensitising women at the grassroots on the importance of family planning.
According to her, the efforts of the NGO had helped to create more awareness among rural women.
“The awareness created by the NURHI has now allowed health workers to counsel women on family planning easily, unlike before when it was not easy to convince and counsel them.”
She said there was improvement in accessing family planning in the area because both men and women were also coming to access family planning services.
“We used to have more women participating now everyday in one family planning technique or the other; at least 50 to 60 clients, while we have between 110 new clients every month for family planning.”
She added that during NURHI outreach “we used to have about 220 new clients coming for family planning.”
She dispelled rumours of any side effect associated with family planning, but advised those requiring the services to patronise professional health officers for appropriate orientation and counselling.
“I want to commend NURHI for renovating the family planning unit and for the training of workers at the hospital.
“If we can get NGOs like this that will assist, the health sector will improve greatly. I pray the government will bring NURHI III, so that maternal health issues will be reduced.
She advised women to plan their families for sustainable healthy living and urged the government to assist NURHI in order to create more awareness among women about the essence of family planning.