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22 May 2017 |
FPAHK invites all service workers serving disadvantaged women’s groups to Chest-funded project sharing on overcoming barriers to sexual health education
With medical advances and good healthcare nowadays, a growing population of women with intellectual disabilities living into their middle age are prone to developing common sexual and reproductive health (SRH) diseases. How can they be taught to detect early symptoms and seek medical assistance by themselves? Such a model successfully established can also be applied to educating young intellectually disabled women, who are vulnerable to sexual assaults, to protect themselves. Women migrant workers of reproductive age, who have left their home countries and family to work in a foreign city alone, have practical needs to access birth control information, education and services and emergency support in cases of unplanned pregnancy but are challenged by language and cultural barriers, poverty and minimum labour protection. South Asian women residing in Hong Kong face similar barriers to accessing basic information and services such as in contraception and health checkup, etc. Both drug users and sex workers had their specific SRH issues and risks which are largely not taken care of.
Prompted by these observations as Hong Kong’s leading SRH education and services provider, The Family Planning Association of Hong Kong (FPAHK), with generous funding support from The Hong Kong Community Chest (ComChest), has implemented a 3-year pilot project during 2014-2017 to deliver custom-made SRH education programs for five underserved women’s groups with specific needs, namely women with intellectual disabilities, South Asian women, migrant workers (domestic helpers), female drug abusers and sex workers, to help them acquire basic understanding of women’s health and to educate them on healthy living practices and disease prevention.
As this 3-year pilot project is coming to its conclusion, FPAHK will organize an Experience Sharing Session to showcase first-hand experience, practical know-hows, original program models and teaching tools tailor-made to address the needs and challenges of these target groups in accessing SRH information, education and services, as fruits of this project born of the concerted efforts of 19 partner organizations. All social work, medical, teaching and caretaking personnel serving these women’s groups or in related social services sectors, the press and other interested parties are invited to participate in this free half-day session.
The Experience Sharing Session on Sexual and Reproductive Health Education Program for Women’s Groups with Specific Needs will be held at 9:00 a.m. - 12:15 p.m., 22 June 2017 at 1/F Auditorium, Christian Family Service Centre, 3 Tsui Ping Road, Kwun Tong, Kowloon. The Session is co-organized with Haven of Hope Christian Service, PathFinders, Teen’s Key and The Society for the Aid and Rehabilitation of Drug Abusers (SARDA). It will comprise a plenary presentation of an overview of the 3-year project followed by five concurrent breakout sessions, each dedicated to one of the women’s groups served under the Project, for participants from respective fields to have more focused sharing and discussions. Display and demonstration of custom-made teaching tool sets will be an additional highlight. The plenary presentation will be conducted in Cantonese with simultaneous interpretation to/from English and breakout sessions in either language depending on the topics.
Participants will gain better awareness and understanding of the SRH challenges faced by their client group and their needs for SRH education to achieve better SRH, learn about effective program models and tailor-made teaching resources specifically developed for such needs and their application. FPAHK hopes this Sharing Session will serve to raise the overall awareness in related social service sectors so as to enhance SRH education and services for these women’s groups.
Online registration for the Experience Sharing Session at https://goo.gl/j0t4LN is now open till 2 June 2017. For programme details, please refer to the below poster or visit the event’s webpage at www.famplan.org.hk/sharingsession/eng.html. For enquiries, please call 2919-7741 or 2919-7743.
Event Poster