Enzo County is located one of the remote Counties in South Sudan in Western Equatorial State. The area grapples with challenges of access to medical facilities and services let alone the access to Family Planning (FP) services which often is hampered by heavily entrenched social cultural norms.

To overcome the barriers to access, the Ministry of Health with support Hope Restoration Platform (HRP) and Amref Health Africa and funding from UNFPA instituted community-based health interventions to help improve access to FP services.

The interventions orientation of stakeholders in the communities of implementation and this included the State Security, Community and Religious Leaders as well as other gate-keepers within the community. Bi-weekly community dialogues were conducted to ensure communities were given chance to air their views and to sustain sensitization on the importance of the FP programme.

During implementation of the interventions, door to door awareness was conducted and community-based distribution of FP commodities was initiated.

With Ezo Central, Andari, Naandi, Yangiri, Bagidi and Bariguna Payams covered, a total of fifteen thousand six hundred and twenty eight (15,628) people were reached with FP messages while one thousand one hundred thirteen (1,113) clients received FP services in the three months of interventions.

“There is need for multi-stakeholder engagement especially the involvement of men if women are to be empowered with FP. Engaging women alone cannot end the misconceptions about sexual reproductive health and FP. The men are key decision makers at the household level, their involvement in the conversation is very important,” said Aluma Moses the Hope Reviving Platform Programme Manager on his experiences supporting the community-based interventions.

Laku, who attended one of the community dialogues aired his thoughts on the sensitization and awareness received. “The common misconception among men in the community is that if women use contraceptives, they become barren. This is a very strong myth in the community,” he said.

“I was glad to hear from someone who has used the contraceptives and how they have been able to have children even after using Family Planning drugs. My wife is here, and we are already talking about this, and I will support her to use FP” Laku added.

UNFPA in South Sudan has empowered local Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) such HRP to engage in community-based interventions around providing information and services especially in hard-to-reach areas.