Health Development Initiative (HDI), in collaboration with the Institute of Reproductive Health from Georgetown University, USAID, PASSAGES and Action Familiale Rwandaise, recently wrapped up its one-year project dubbed Strengthening FAM into Family Planning Service Delivery. This was during a meeting that brought together 60 participants, including CSO working on SRHR, facility-based providers and Community Health Workers who shared some lessons learned on the obligation of strengthening cycle beads into existing family planning methods. Having started in June 2021, the project aimed at revitalizing the fertility awareness and standardized methods which had lost presence here in Rwanda. After its conclusion in Rwanda, the lessons learnt should inform the next steps, according to Dr Aflodis Kagaba, the Executive Director of HDI. “This is the final meeting for the fertility awareness methods project, but for us, the project does not end here, rather we will use the lessons learnt from the initiative to make well-informed decisions in our future activities related to family planning,” he observed. The project focused on family planning and fertility awareness through cycle beads and using natural methods. It was done through training and awareness raising where more than 60 medical students, 15 master trainers, 82 facility-based providers and 270 Community Health Workers were trained on the family planning method. Jeannette Cachan, the Technical Advisor for family planning at the Institute of Reproductive Health of Georgetown University which has worked in family planning for more than 35 years, reiterates some of the projects’ activities. “We wanted to strengthen fertility awareness methods and the standardized methods which were needed because the work had been done here in Rwanda, but the method had lost presence in services, so the idea was to revitalize and strengthen what was there before,” she commented. The initiative started by advocacy to procure cycle beads among other family planning commodities. “We wanted to train women and other health providers on using cycle beads as well as natural methods through working with community health workers, holding radio talk shows related to fertility awareness, so that youths can learn more about their puberty changes and use that information to make choices related to their lives, and bring down a lot of misconceptions about their bodies,” she added. Apart from strengthening was also to try to introduce some innovations, using technology and one of them was using interactive voice Response (IVR) to train community health workers. Also to mention, the cycle beads mobile application which had not picked up in Rwanda was reintroduced and marketed at a high level to make it known. The third innovation was to test a paper version of the cycle beads, because the national program of family planning did not have it in the services, so having the paper version played a role as a tool that a woman needs so as to follow the method, training providers and building their capacity. According to Dr William Rutagengwa, the Director of Bugesera District Hospital, the project has been beneficial to young people because they fear acquiring sexual reproductive health services in the eyes of their parents. “Due to the laws we have which do not allow young people to acquire family planning services without the consent of their parents, young people are afraid to acquire the services they need, so this information provided and platforms have been of essential use to them,” he said. For low access to sexual reproductive health services is the root cause of increase of teenage pregnancies. “The more you make SRHR services confidential, the more you incur heavier and heavier consequences,” she realized. Cycle beads method has been tested clinically more than 20 years ago and established as a valid method for birth control and pregnancy.
