The Ministry of Health and Population and UNFPA launched the Community Engagement Plan for youth-friendly services in Fayoum on September 4, in partnership with Gozour Foundation for Development and with the support of the European Union in Egypt.

The event was attended by the Governor of Fayoum, Dr. Ahmed Al-Ansary, who also inaugurated a youth-friendly clinic in a primary healthcare unit in Fayoum.

The Ministry of Health and Population, UNFPA and Gozour had held a workshop in December 2021 to devise a plan to engage communities and mobilize them around adolescents and youth-friendly health services.

The Community Engagement Plan aims to support efforts to increase the awareness of adolescents and youth, including young people with disabilities, as well as support young people to receive reproductive health services through youth-friendly clinics. It also aims to increase the demand on youth-friendly services through the youth-friendly clinics.

“Proper health practices must be encouraged … and the awareness messages must be consistent by all relevant government entities, civil society and the private sector,” Al-Ansary said, “This will yield an impact on the long run, that is why we must ensure the sustainability of these efforts.”

UNFPA presented the Community Engagement Plan framework to enhance the utilization of youth-friendly health services in a workshop attended by representatives from relevant ministries including the Ministry of Education and Technical Education, the Ministry of Youth and Sports, the Ministry of Social Solidarity, the Ministry of Endowments, as well as representatives from civil society organizations and the Coptic Church.

The workshop was headed by Dr. Wael Abdelrazek, Head of the Primary Healthcare sector, Dr. Mohamed Abdallah, Head of Administration of Primary Healthcare sector, Dr. Gamal Elkashef, Head of school-age directorate and UNFPA representatives.

This was followed by the formation of a governorate-level committee responsible for the implementation of the Community Engagement Plan’s activities in Fayoum.

This comes under the EU Support to Egypt’s National Population Strategy project, which engages young people and people in reproductive age to increase the use of voluntary, rights-based family planning.

Providing youth-friendly services empowers and enables young people to make responsible and informed reproductive health decisions.