Marie Stopes supports family planning services

Marie Stopes Tanzania (MST) has issued five tri-cycles (Bajaj’s) worth 25m/- as soft loan to five youth who have been dedicated to disseminating family planning service in the outskirts of Dar es Salaam city.

over the Bajajis at Tandale Uwanja wa Fisi area in Manzese ward, the MST Director Ms Ulla Muller said the Bajajis will operate in all the three municipalities of Kinondoni, Ilala and Temeke. “The youth will visit local government health clinics as well as people’s homes to deliver the family planning services.

All the youth are well trained in family planning issues and will be accompanied by a registered nurse to ensure high quality counselling is offered. She stated that, the drivers will be charging for the service rendered and will be required to re-pay back 1200/- everyday until they complete the loan within a set period of one year.

Ms Muller was concerned with available data that indicate that most of girls were not aware of the family planning services as statistics show that 8,000 girls in the country dropped out of school due to pregnancy in 2010, 1,760 of them were still in primary schools and 6,300 in secondary schools.

She said that MST would continue to focus on how they can support young women and men and now they are impressed by introducing Miss Tanzania 2012 Brigitte Alfred who realized the importance of reaching youth who are the future generation.

“As Miss Tanzania 2010 I would like to thank MST for the programme and I see it as a golden opportunity. I am optimistic that it will work and I am ready to work hard to provide education to my fellow young women in Tanzania, because together we can make a difference in women’s lives,” said Ms Alfred.

The Deputy Minister for Health and Social Welfare, Dr Seif Seleman Rashid who officiated at the event said family planning was crucial since it provides the opportunities for women and men to be engaged in other development activities like agriculture, business or employed in different sectors.

“Apart from having a small family, parents have good opportunity to invest seriously to their children specially providing better education,” he said.

Expounding furthermore, he said that his ministry would continue to support such programmes in order to reach the target of Millennium Development Goals of reducing maternal mortality rate from 454 maternal deaths to 133 by 2015. MST also provides services of treating women who have been affected by cervical cancer.