Guinea: Family Planning Campaign

Dates: October 1999 - March 2000

• Overview
• Partners
• Objective
• Target Audience
• Activities
• Outputs
• Impact
• Unique Features

Overview

Guinea has a very young population; more than 60% are under the age of 24, and about 15% are between the ages of 15-24 years old. Similar to other African countries, many Guinean youth are sexually active at a young age, usually without protection, resulting in unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections. At the time of the 1999 DHS, 32% of 15 to 19 year olds had given birth and 5% were pregnant. According to the Program National de Lutte contre le SIDA (PNLS), HIV/AIDS is prevalent among young Guineans in their mid to late twenties, yet there are not yet sentinel sites in Guinea to gather nationwide statistics. Only 3% of 15 to 19 olds were using a modern FP method and only 11% percent of boys used a condom during last sexual intercourse (1999 Guinea, Demographic and Health Survey). Since religious leaders in Guinea play an very influential role in knowledge, attitude and practices of Guineans, they were understood to be a suitable audience for the campaign.

Partners

MSH

Local partners include:

• Regional and sub-regional IEC Working Groups
• Ministry of Health
• Peace Corps
• Oulémas de Guinée
• GTZ
• UNFPA
• KfW
• World Bank

Funding provided for micro projects to:

• Coordination sur les Pratiques Traditionnelles Affectant la Sante des Femmes et des Enfants (CPTAFE-Coordination on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children), Kankan and Faranah
• Association pour la Promotion des Filles de Guinée (APROFIG-Association for the Promotion of Girls in Guinea), Kankan
• Association de Femmes pour la Formation et l'Appui aux Accoucheuses Villageoises (AFFAAV-Women's Association for the Training and Support of Village Birth Attendants), Faranah
• Assoc. Promo. 70/Siguiri
• Centre Africain de Formation pour le Developpement (CENAFOD-African Center of Training for Development), Dabola

Objective

Build support among men and religious leaders for family planning.

Target Audience

Religious leaders and men in the general population, in three project regions and at the national level.

Activities

• Mini-campaigns around thirty newly integrated Health Center sites, where FP had been integrated into the menu of primary care services.
• Religious Leaders Conferences with partners from the MOH and Oulemas de Guinée in each of the project's initial 15 prefectures. Approximately 450 leaders attended conferences.
• Regional, National and Prefecture Launches featuring speeches, parades, music, dance, theatre, film, and other activities inspiring mostly male audiences to "to talk your wife about family planning", and to "go to the health center".

Outputs

• Video on Islam and reproductive health issues. The video includes the four themes identified in the conferences: Islam and Child Health, Islam and Maternal Health, Islam and Couple Health, and Islam and Family Planning. The video, produced in Malinke, was sub-titled in French.
• Posters: "Talk to Your Wife about Modern Methods of Family Planning" and "Go to Your Health Center". Posters feature the tag line: Planification Familiale-J'en parle avec ma femme. Et toi? ("I talk to my wife about family planning. How about you?") and are in French and Malinke with Arab script.
• Brochure: "Talk to your wife about family planning" -- multi-paneled brochures in French and Malinke.
• Cassette: PRISM developed and, in collaboration with Rural Radio/Nzerekore, recorded a 20-minute cassette, featuring a popular local comedian who demonstrates a husband's dilemma in discussing FP with his wife. The cassette's title, La Vie N'est Pas Compliquée (Life is not Complicated), is also the title of the radio drama.
• Rural radio programs: PRISM contracted and worked with the national Rural Radio Station to produce 10 programs in 4 languages (Malinke, Kissi, Kpele, and Konian).
• Radio spots: PRISM produced ten radio spots in five languages.
• Radio drama: The 26 episode radio drama, La Vie N'est Pas Compliquée was produced in French, as well as in three local languages.
• Publicity materials: Materials produced to support launches and community mobilization events, featured the campaign logo and slogan Planification Familiale--J'en parle avec ma femme. Et toi?and included: t-shirts, plastic market bags, cloth bags, hats, stickers, water pots, key chains, pens, and commemorative cloths (pagnes).
• CBD Logo: IEC/BCC, in collaboration with the community-based distribution (CBD) component, produced and distributed pagnes and shirts featuring the CBD logo.
• Association des Tradipracticiens Guékédou (ASTRAG-Association of Traditional Healers of Guékédou)
• AED/Nzérékoré

Impact

• Awareness about modern family planning methods increased markedly with 73 percent of religious leaders at baseline aware of three or more modern methods compared to 99 percent at follow-up.
• A favorable shift in the perceptions about the position of Islam on family planning occurred since the campaign began. At baseline, 37 percent of the leaders interviewed reported knowledge of a verse in the Koran or Hadith that favors the practice of family planning; at follow-up 93 percent reported such knowledge. Similarly, the proportion that believed that Islam supports the use of family planning for child spacing increased from 55 percent at baseline to 94 percent at follow-up. Although at follow-up, the majority of the respondents still believe that Islam condemns the use of family planning for the purpose of limiting the number of births, the data show a decline in this attitude.
• Religious leaders who believed that having many children is a sign of wealth decreased from 35 percent at baseline to 11 percent at follow-up. Similarly, those who believed that the value of a woman depends upon the number of children she has, decreased from 35 percent to 25 percent.
• The data indicate increased spousal communication about family planning among religious leaders since the onset of the advocacy campaign. The leaders that reported ever discussing family planning with their spouses increased from 41 percent at the baseline to 95 percent at follow-up. Much of the reported spousal communication about family planning took place only since the onset of the campaign. At baseline about 25 percent reported discussing family planning with their spouse during the 3 months preceding the survey compared with 91 percent at follow-up.
• Data showed evidence of increased perceived social support for family planning. Compared to baseline, more religious leaders at follow-up perceived that most of the people around them were in favor of family planning.
• About 96 percent at follow-up compared with 43 percent at baseline reported that they had encouraged someone to use modern contraception. The mean number of sermons promoting the use of modern contraception preached increased from 1.6 at baseline to about 7 at follow-up.

Unique Features

The religious leaders themselves were involved in the execution of the campaign from the design phase.

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