RSPN entered into a partnership with Population Services International (PSI) to provide reproductive health services to communities in ten districts of Punjab, Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). The PSI-Supported Family Planning Programme in Pakistan is a seven-year project that aims to create an enabling environment for women, girls and men to avail healthy reproductive choices; increase the availability of family planning services and products in uncovered rural areas, and strengthen accountability through increased transparency and stringent monitoring. RSPN has collaborated with the National Rural Support Programme (NRSP), Punjab Rural Support Programme (PRSP), Sindh Rural Support Organisation (SRSO) to implement this programme in the districts of Jhang, Toba Tek Singh, Rahim Yar Khan, Bahawalpur, Mardan, Swabi, Shikarpur, Jacobabad, Qambar Shahdadkot and Tando Muhammad Khan. A total uncovered population of 5.7 million people will be targeted to create 422,076 new users of family planning services during project life.
Over the next seven years, this programme will focus on the community using Community Resource Persons (CRPs), trained local social volunteers who will go door-to-door within their respective catchment areas to refer women to scheduled outreach camps where they may access family planning counselling and services from qualified Family Welfare Workers/Lady Health Visitors.
The programme’s objectives include converting young married couples of reproductive age into new users of family planning services, converting users of traditional contraceptive methods to users of modern contraceptive methods as well as the strategic upscaling of ‘Business in a Box’ — a micro-entrepreneurship venture intended to help make contraceptives sustainably accessible.
These interventions are expected to result in:
In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the programme Lady Health Visitors (LHVs) ensured essential service delivery of contraceptive commodities to couples in rural communities to prevent the discontinuation of family planning practices. Communities were sensitised on the threat of the pandemic, and preventive steps to take to protect themselves from COVID-19, through informative text messages and loudspeaker announcements disseminated within the community.
