Aahung provides needs-specific training to improve the skills of those in the medical, educational and non-profit community who work with adolescents and adults.  Through our training services teachers, doctors, community health workers and social workers learn how to manage and respond effectively to sexual health issues.

Looking ahead, Aahung aims to integrate sexual health information, education and communication services into the scope of work of organisations by offering both in-service training on technical information as well as on communication skills required to meet each institution’s particular needs.  We will also continue to develop and improve our services through module and curriculum development aimed at addressing the specific sexual health needs of various populations and institutions identified through our own community-based experiences and research initiatives.

Training Health Professionals | Capacity Building for the Future | Empowering Communities  | Testimonials

Training Health Professionals

Aahung conducts workshops for personnel from clinics, hospitals, medical universities and institutions for non-allopathic healthcare providers, such as hakims and homeopaths.  The workshops stress the importance of taking a sexual history, client-centred healthcare, maintaining non-judgmental behaviours and challenging misconceptions in order to help reduce high-risk behaviour. In addition, through research and consultations with leading health practitioners, Aahung continues to develop medical protocols and guidelines to improve the capacity of health practitioners to provide quality sexual health services.

Organisational Links

A list of clinical service delivery organisations and academic institutions that have made an effort to address sexual health issues in their work include: Marie Stopes Society, the Family Planning Association of Pakistan, Sobhraj Maternity Hospital, Kharadar General Hospital,  Baqai Medical University, Ziauddin Medical University, Isra Medical University. Hamdard University, Alavi Homeopathic College, Karachi Homeopathic College, and the Health and Hygiene Society.
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Capacity Building for the Future: Life Skills Education

Aahung's Life Skills Education (LSE) component has gained considerable experience working with school-going children and has established itself as a training resource for teachers. Our training is needs-specific and is designed to enhance the skills of teachers in addressing the needs of adolescents. Specifically, our adolescent life skills training initiative aims to enable teachers to play a vital role in educating adolescents about their sexual health and rights.

Education topics include:

Additional topics can be tailored to accommodate an organisation’s specific needs.   For more information please contact us.
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Organisational Links

A number of schools have utilized our educational services. Our training courses have helped their educators to deal with the host of sexual health issues that accompany adolescence in their students. Our training has also been provided to managers, health educators, and supervisors at PAHVNA (Pakistan Voluntary Health and Nutrition Association).

Using a variety of methods, such as case-studies, role-plays, and group work, our training courses encourage participatory discussion and foster the exchange of information. In each course teachers and community workers working with adolescents learn the appropriate methodology to address the sensitive topic of sexual health in an effective and appropriate manner.

Empowering Communities

In an effort to increase accessibility to Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) related information, Aahung collaborates with community-based organisations in remote rural areas of Pakistan.  Training is provided to their field staff on our Aware for Life (Sexual Health) manual, in order to enable them to run sessions from the same manual in their communities. The trainings aim to build the capacity of participants to become sexual health trainers.  This is achieved by increasing their knowledge on and understanding of sexual health issues and improving their comfort and skills with regards to communicating on the subject.
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Testimonials: Feedback on Our Trainings From Past Participants

“An extremely useful and interactive workshop.  I truly had no idea as to the linkages between diseases of genital tract and the social, cultural, and personal norms.  Now I know that it is not only my duty to give treatment for a disease but to also take the initiative and steps to prevent reoccurrence and spread [of infection].”

- Participant from a training held with Alavi Homeopathic College.

“In the information age, children have access to information that is inappropriate and inaccurate.  We are fortunate that there is an organisation like Aahung which provides students with appropriate guidance at a very important stage of development to young adults.”

- Shahpur Jamal, South Shore School Principal.

“After attending the sexual health training, I realised that it is not always because of the woman that a couple cannot have children.  In my community, infertility is a huge problem and many men marry multiple times thinking that there must be something wrong with their wife if they can’t have children.  In my own family, my brother and his wife could not have children and everyone in the family was pressuring him to re-marry. I found out from Aahung’s training that maybe something could be wrong with my brother and I told him to go to the city hospital and get checked up.  He went and it turned out that there was something wrong with my brother.”

- Hamid Ali Lashari, Child Development Organisation, Johi, Dadu
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