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In Ghana, Rita Teaches Family Planning and Helps Reduce Teen Pregnancy

August 3, 2016

Rita Korley joined The Hunger Project-Ghana as an animator trainee in 2007. Since completing the training, she has been educating her community on topics such as forced marriage, child labor and domestic violence.

In 2010, Rita decided to focus her efforts on preventing teen pregnancy since, until then, three or four girls each year took their Basic Education Certification Examination (BECE) while pregnant. “I worked with the teachers, sensitizing the school children on the effects and the harms teenage pregnancy can do to them; and the fact that they stand the risk of contracting HIV,” Rita said.

Her efforts worked. When we last interviewed Rita, we learned that in the years immediately following her intervention only one pregnant teen was recorded taking the education examination in 2012 and none were recorded in  2013.

Rita also identified and assisted four couples in her community who were having a hard time providing for their families, counseling them and giving them directions on how to use birth control. Three of those couples are now practicing family planning and have said that it has increased family unity  and helped eliminate fights between parents. “For me, seeing this satisfaction on the faces of people as a result of the little I do, gives me self-fulfillment… The Hunger Project has made a real change in my life.”

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