Great Bay: ---United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) representatives will be on St. Maarten next week to conduct meetings on September 9 with stakeholders and to hold a two-day workshop on September 10 and 11.
The purpose of their visit is to do a country assessment on reproductive health commodity security, comprehensive condom programming, and the female condom programming. They will also do a site visit to various brothels, a pharmacy and will also visit a condom wholesaler. The findings from the assessment will be gathered and analyzed by UNFPA and represented to St. Maarten in the form of a report, along with the evaluation results from the training workshop.
The objectives of the two day workshop are: to increase partner awareness and understanding of reproductive health commodity security; to increase partner understanding of comprehensive condom programming so that it can be applied at a national level and assist partners in the development of a National Plans for Condom Programming and Promotion; to increase partner awareness of the second-generation female condom and strategies for programming and promoting the female condom.
Cornelius de Weever, Assistant HIV/AIDS Programme Manager said”: I wish that all stakeholders attend and hopefully out of this workshop the need for a sexual reproductive health policy arises. For this we need great leadership to ensure access to these sexual reproductive health services and supplies, such as condoms, pills and counseling in order to reduce social inequity, poverty that runs from one generation to the next and continues to erode St. Maarten’s middle class.”
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) is an international development agency that promotes the right of every woman, man and child to enjoy a life of health and equal opportunity. UNFPA supports countries in using population data for policies and programmes to reduce poverty and to ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, every young person is free of HIV/AIDS, and every girl and woman is treated with dignity and respect.