UNICEF joined UNFPA and other UN agencies at the second edition of the Adolescent Health Ambassador Camp in the Garden City of Kumasi.
Organized jointly by the Ghana Health Service and the Ghana Education Service. The three-day camp meeting had the theme, “Equipping Young People as Health Ambassadors for Sustainable Development.”
About 583 adolescents between the ages of 15 and 24 including 50 hearing impaired adolescents from all the ten regions of Ghana participated in the three-day camp.
UNICEF Communication for Development Officer, Charity Nikoi, took the opportunity to present U-Report as an innovative platform for young people to have a voice.
She said “as health ambassadors one of the ways that participants and their peers can bring up issues on sexual reproductive health and help their empowerment and total development is through the U-Report platform.”
Participants were also taken into a moment of joining the U-Report platform by texting JOIN to the short code 1755.
Some young people interviewed after the registration.
Emilia,22, University of Ghana, said she expects abortion, teenage pregnancy focusing on the consequences and its implication on the adolescents also drug abuse.
Kofi 17, ST. Mary’s Seminary in the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan said, “the discussion of the U-Report platform will give the opportunity to young people who are in rural communities to have access to information and also give them a voice during the polls on U-Report. He thinks it is good to give young people a voice so that they will be able to handle the affairs of governance in their adulthood.”
Priscilla, 16, from Begoro, Eastern Region, thinks the young people are the future of Ghana and must be given a voice on the U-Report platform. She also hopes the questions on the topics will be on adolescent health and sexuality.
Many young people joined the platform during the Health camp and are excited to be U-Reporters.
