Family Planning Project a Great Success
Mon, 11 October 2010
‘We now realise how important it is to come forward to be tested. We are no longer afraid.’ - Grade 9 Class
REPORT 2: Hantam Community Education Trust – Community Family Planning and Pregnancy Testing
This project aimed to enable the Hantam Trust health workers to run a family planning programme for 92 girls and women from the area and to conduct approximately 22 pregnancy tests throughout the year.
Activities and Outcomes
The Hantam family planning project has achieved a lot in the six months from January to July 2010. The family planning project is part of a holistic intervention that includes education on health issues, as well as practical skills development such as the planting of a vegetable garden. These are two examples of the large number of projects that Hantam has undertaken. The following are direct outputs achieved by the family planning project between January and July 2010:
- The clinic continues to function well. Since May the clinic is open twice a week, on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings.
- An average of 56 patients are seen at the clinic each week
- R8124.10 was collected in clinic fees. This income helps to cover the cost of medicines. It also ensures that the community buys-in to the project and it increases the sustainability of the organisation
- The health workers and AIDS counselors conducted 35 home visits
- HIV testing was done on a further 26 patients with only one HIV-positive result
- 27 visits were made to 18 different farming communities where workshops were run. Training was given to 48 mothers in order to enhance the quality of care and education they provide for their children. The training includes the monitoring of 47 babies and toddlers
- 78 women received family planning injections
- 84 women underwent pregnancy tests, all of which were negative. The majority of these women then requested to use a form of birth control
The family planning project has given the beneficiaries greater access not only to education, but also to medical assistance. Although some of the community members are still apprehensive about the HIV/AIDS test, the family planning project has created greater awareness in this regard and has encouraged more people to come forward to be tested.
Easier access to family planning methods and information has largely been appreciated by the community. There has been great enthusiasm shown towards the project.
Expenditure
The total budget for this project is R23 860 and the full amount has been paid.
| Description | Total Budget | Total Expenses to date |
| Salaries | 8 500 | 8 500 |
| Administration | 3 440 | 3 440 |
| UIF | 100 | 100 |
| R.S.C | 45 | 45 |
| Workman’s Compensation | 40 | 40 |
| Vehicle costs | 4 365 | 4 365 |
| Building | 300 | 300 |
| Office Equipment | 1 000 | 1 000 |
| Medicine | 6 070 | 6 070 |
| Total | 23 860 | 23 860 |
Challenges
Their project’s greatest challenge is the education of young girls on how their bodies work, how they get pregnant and the consequences of a pregnancy. It is challenging to get the beneficiaries to see the importance of family planning and to practise responsible sex. The education component of the programme is essential to the whole process and seems to be the most challenging in terms of visible impact.
Monitoring and evaluation
The Hantam family planning project has quite an extensive platform for monitoring and evaluation. The health workers, clinic staff and the clinic manager provide reports on the patients that they have seen at the clinic each week.
The Effective Parenting workshops are monitored using an attendance register for all the mothers and babies that attend. Hantam assesses these parents and their babies and maintains up-to-date evaluation files on the participants. The health workers each produce a quarterly report on HIV/AIDS counselling, social and health problems, and the different intervention programmes. The trainers of the programmes also produce quarterly reports that focus on the impact the programmes have on their participants and beneficiaries.
The home visits provide visual evidence of improved, hygienic living conditions. Records are kept of all the patients who have come forward for voluntary HIV testing and the number of family planning injections, pregnancy tests and immunisations are also recorded.
Conclusions
The Hantam Community Education Trust has a holistic approach to supporting those in need that live in and around Hantam. They run various projects and programmes that assist community members in education, health and sustainable living.
The family planning programme is crucial in helping these communities to understand the importance of proper family planning and of practising safe sex. It assists in the awareness of HIV /AIDS within these communities with the hope of reducing the rate of infection in the future.
