Women and their families need the knowledge, skills, and social support to make and act on safe reproductive health decisions. Ipas Pakistan employs a variety of strategies to build community awareness around a range of SRH issues, including the risks of unsafe abortion, when fertility returns after an abortion, and where to access safe services. We build the capacity of LHWs, FWAs, and social mobilizers to provide reproductive health information and to refer individuals to facilities with trained providers. As a result of these interventions
Ipas-trained LHWs sensitized 90,123 women on safe pathways for abortion and contraceptive care; over the past three years, LHWs have referred 2,239 women seeking PAC services to Ipas-supported facilities.
Before Ipas sessions with Lady Health Workers, they were using D&C and UE interchangeably, which is an indication of strong prevalence of D&C in Pakistan. Ipas Pakistan data collected before and after the trainings (from June to December 2019 with a total of 405 LHWs) indicated that 97% compared to 28% benchmark reported improved knowledge on safe technologies for UE/PAC.
Ipas employed a user-centred design approach to develop innovative tools and messages to engage men and build their awareness and support of safe pathways to reproductive health care, including PAC and contraceptive care.
