Twenty-year old Tiglu Demissie is a person with disability and a college student who actively engages in demand creation activities in his community for family planning and HIV response services. He has also become an advocate for utilization of sexual and reproductive health services. Together with his friends who are trained as peer educators, he supports young people to seek services by providing information on the available services. Through this work, he has learned about the potential social and economic consequences of having a large family.
Tiglu was provided training on peer education and sexual and reproductive health topics by the Yirgachefe woreda Youth and Sport Office. This office is one of the implementing partners of UNFPA on the project entitled 'Integrated Family Planning and Sexual Reproductive Health Programme' funded by the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA).
This five-year project which commenced in 2019 is complementing efforts at strengthening the capacity of adolescents and young people to make informed decisions on their sexual and reproductive health and rights, especially on family planning. The project is being supported in selected districts in the West Guji Zone (Bule Hora, Gelana and Kercha) and Gedeo Zone (Dilla, Gedeb and Yirgacheffe) of Oromia and SNNP regions respectively to ensure that comprehensive adolescent-friendly services are included in humanitarian response. The conflicts in the two zones in recent years resulted in hundreds of thousands of displaced persons increasing the vulnerability of adolescents and youth to HIV, sexually transmitted infections and other sexual & reproductive health problems, and sexual and gender-based violence.
Supporting young people make informed choices
To support young people like Tiglu to make informed choices, Youth-Friendly Service (YFS) corners were established as part of the project at health centers. The project has been striving to empower adolescents and youth by making choices and services available as well as developing the capacity of healthcare providers and institutions to provide quality sexual and reproductive health and family planning services. This has been bolstering efforts at strengthening key social behaviour change communication platforms to enhance service seeking behaviours. Young people are getting SRH and gender-based violence response services in a friendly manner free-of-charge.
UNFPA is also supporting integrated SRH outreach and mobile services to address marginalized young people, and trained Health Extension Workers to strengthen referral linkage and generate demand for services.
Fulfilling potential
As part of the project, Tiglu was also able to receive business skills and entrepreneurship training from the Yirgachefe Woreda Youth and Sport Office in the effort at providing economic support for vulnerable youth. He is one of the 51 young people who got start-up capital since the project started five years ago. The youngest among his siblings, Tiglu grew up in an extended family eking a meagre livelihood on a half hectare of land. Only he and two of his siblings could go to school due to the financial constraints of his family.
Tiglu submitted a business proposal and received 14,000 ETB as start-up capital, which he used to start a seedling farm for false banana. He later expanded his business into sheep breeding and fattening of cattle. With his business, he was able to pay for his school fees and support his family. He even managed to save 28,000 ETB.
"The support in terms of training and start-up capital gave me bright hope and made me believe that anything is possible," Tiglu comments.
Tiglu plans to continue his education and specialize in Information and Communication Technology while continuing his business. "Disability doesn’t limit me and is not an obstacle to achieving my dream," he says confidently.
Tiglu plans to marry after completing his education and have a smaller family size of two.
