he Adolescents and Young People Health (AYPH) is one of the priorities of Government of Eritrea. The Adolescents and Young People (10 to 24 years) constitutes one third or 33.3% of the Eritrean population. To fulfill their health need the Eritrean Government has endorsed an Adolescent Policy in 2004 and developed a five year strategic plan recently in August 2014.

The Adolescents and young people are facing various health problems such as unwanted pregnancies, HIV/AIDS, Substance use (Alcohol, Tobacco and Drug), Early marriage, mental health and other communicable and non-communicable diseases.

Since August 2014, the MOH of Eritrea with the technical and financial support of WHO started a new approach to strengthen the response to the specific health needs of Adolescents and Young People. In line with the Adolescent Health Policy developed in 2004, a rapid need assessment was conducted and the AYPH five year strategic plan 2014-2019 as well as the Standards for Adolescents and Young People Friendly Health Services.  Earlier in 2014 an assessment was conducted to pilot the youth friendly health services and accordingly, 6 health facilities from the 6 Regions were selected.

The next step was to develop a national training Kit for health provider and to conduct a training of trainers to initiate the friendly health services and have the sustainability of capacity building. Thus, during February 25th to March 20th, WHO provided technical assistance to develop this training kit and train the trainers who will conduct the training for the health providers county wide. The whole process from the strategic plan development to this mission, the technical support was provided by Dr Nagbandja Kampatibe, former regional adviser on adolescent Health in AFRO.

Four important workshops were organized.

From February 25th to March 3rd was an adaptation workshop.  33 participants selected by the MOH from the 6 Regions were fist oriented on the content of the generic training kit of WHO. In the Orientation Programme (OP) on Adolescent health for Health Service Providers. Then they selected the Modules to be adapted by Eritrea. They were divided into 7 groups and they proceeded to the adaptation of all the modules selected. At the end of the workshop, the twelve modules selected and the orientation modules were adapted.

The Training of Trainers (TOT) took place in Massawa from 9th-13th March on which almost the same participants of the first workshop participate in that one. The facilitator assisted the participants to use the National training Kit and simulate subsequent trainings. At the same time, observations were collected to guide the finalization of the Training kit. At the end of the training, 16 national trainers were selected out of the 33 participants with 12 from the Regions and 4 form national levels. From 16th -20 March, the consultant proceeded to finalize the national training Kit that is now to be printed and used.

The Adolescents and Young People Health (AYPH) is one of the priorities of Government of Eritrea. The Adolescents and Young People (10 to 24 years) constitutes one third or 33.3% of the Eritrean population. To fulfil their health need the Eritrean Government has endorsed an Adolescent Policy in 2004 and developed a five year strategic plan recently in August 2014.

The Adolescents and young people are facing various health problems such as unwanted pregnancies, HIV/AIDS, Substance use (Alcohol, Tobacco and Drug), Early marriage, mental health and other communicable and non-communicable diseases.

Since August 2014, the MOH of Eritrea with the technical and financial support of WHO started a new approach to strengthen the response to the specific health needs of Adolescents and Young People. In line with the Adolescent Health Policy developed in 2004, a rapid need assessment was conducted and the AYPH five year strategic plan 2014-2019 as well as the Standards for Adolescents and Young People Friendly Health Services.  Earlier in 2014 an assessment was conducted to pilot the youth friendly health services and accordingly, 6 health facilities from the 6 Regions were selected.

The next step was to develop a national training Kit for health provider and to conduct a training of trainers to initiate the friendly health services and have the sustainability of capacity building. Thus, during February 25th to March 20th, WHO provided technical assistance to develop this training kit and train the trainers who will conduct the training for the health providers county wide. The whole process from the strategic plan development to this mission, the technical support was provided by Dr Nagbandja Kampatibe, former regional adviser on adolescent Health in AFRO.

Four important workshops were organized.

From February 25th to March 3rd was an adaptation workshop.  33 participants selected by the MOH from the 6 Regions were fist oriented on the content of the generic training kit of WHO. In the Orientation Programme (OP) on Adolescent health for Health Service Providers. Then they selected the Modules to be adapted by Eritrea. They were divided into 7 groups and they proceeded to the adaptation of all the modules selected. At the end of the workshop, the twelve modules selected and the orientation modules were adapted.

The Training of Trainers (TOT) took place in Massawa from 9th - 13th March on which almost the same participants of the first workshop participate in that one. The facilitator assisted the participants to use the National training kit and simulate subsequent trainings. At the same time, observations were collected to guide the finalization of the Training kit. At the end of the training, 16 national trainers were selected out of the 33 participants with 12 from the Regions and 4 form national levels. From 16th -20 March, the consultant proceeded to finalize the national training kit that is now to be printed and used.

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Below:

01. Group photo of the participants of the TOT workshop

02. A section of participants of the adaptation training materials workshop