UNFPA and MoH organize strategic kick off meeting for youth sexual reproductive health campaign in Mongolia

On Friday October 30 a strategic stakeholder workshop was organised to meet with stakeholders and to coordinate the efforts of a nationwide campaign to improve sexual reproductive health of Mongolian youth. Main objectives of the workshop were to learn from other organisations, to share what has been done in the past and to identify the main areas of work for the campaign. This was an initial kick off meeting and that means that now the actual work will start. Trainings with youth facilitators are planned for conducting youth focus groups (7 November) to ensure youth involvement throughout the campaign.

Goals of the mass media campaign
The campaign aims to (1) increase knowledge and sexual reproductive health (SRH) self assessment (short term), to (2) increase youth demand for SRH information and services (medium term) and to (3) decrease the incidence of Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) and unwanted pregnancies in Mongolia (long term).

Cooperation
The initiative of this campaign comes from UNFPA and the Ministry of Health who are working closely together to ensure quality reproductive health commodities and services. This campaign will be designed and developed with a lot of youth involvement and the agencies responsible for the design and implementation are Shagdui and New Gateway.

Outcomes
The main outcome of the workshop was that a nationwide campaign is very much needed to ensure a sustainable information flow on sexual reproductive health for youth. The information flow should continue over a longer period of time and messages should be tailored for boys and girls specifically. In order to make relevant messages for youth, they should be designed in a positive way and should show that youth have a choice to lead a sexually healthy life. The workshop participants agreed that messages should not be negative and that networks of friends can be an important vehicle for the dissemination of messages.