Today Aahung focuses on developing the capacity of large public and private organizations to integrate components of Sexual and Reproducctive Health and Rights into their scope of work. Our four thematic areas of focus are:

Child sexual abuse occurs when an adult or adolescent uses a child for sexual purposes. It involves exposing a child to any kind of sexual activity, content or behavior. CSA is a betrayal of trust and an abuse of power over the child and is often accompanied by other forms of mistreatment.

Aahung works with primary and secondary school teachers and caregivers to develop their knowledge, comfort and skills on this topic.  This includes developing essential communication skills amongst teachers and caregivers to be able to communicate with children on this highly sensitive issue as well as teaching them techniques and strategies for preventing child sexual abuse

Young people today form the largest cohort of Pakistan’s population. Over 65% of the population is under the age of 25.  Adolescence is defined as the stage in life which lies between being a child and being an adult.  Adolescence begins before puberty and goes on till the individual is a fully developed and mature adult.  It is during this phase of life that individuals go through a host of physical, emotional and social changes.  Due to the taboo nature of discussing puberty and related changes, adolescents in Pakistan are usually left in the dark to deal with these changes independently.  Similarly, adolescence is the stage when individuals are beginning to shape their values and are extremely vulnerable to peer and external influences.  It is crucial inculcate positive values, provide adolescents with the correct knowledge and support them in developing essential skills that will enable them to make better decisions about their lives.  

Aahung works with public and private schools to support them in integrating quality life skills (sexuality) education into the school curriculum. Teachers are equipped with the knowledge, language and methodology to be able to discuss ASRH issues in the classroom.  Aahungs life skills education curriculum covers a range of issues including pubertal changes, gender discrimination, HIV / AIDS, violence, peer pressure, rights within the nikanama, positive health seeking behaviours and the importance of planning a family.  Aahung’s modules have been run in diverse social and cultural contexts across the country and have been accepted as highly culturally and religiously appropriate for the Pakistani context.

Health care providers in Pakistan are not given appropriate training and education to manage the complexities associated with sexual and reproductive health and rights issues.  Topics such as management of reproductive tract infections, how to take a sexual history, counselling for Family Planning and management of HIV / AIDS is covered extremely superficially in their training curricula.  When these graduating health care providers go out in the field, not only are they unable to manage these issues, but they perpetuate the prevailing myths and misconceptions about sexual and reproductive health issues.

Aahung works with medical academic and health worker training institutions to integrate quality sexual and reproductive health education in their curricula.  Faculty are provided with training tools, modules and in-depth information on these topics so that they can further impart this information to their students.  Aahung also provides classroom support to the institutions on board.  This strategy has been employed to ensure that future generations of health care providers have the necessary, knowledge, comfort and skills to appropriately manage the sexual and reproductive health concerns of the population.

In order to improve the quality of services being provided by in-service health care providers, Aahung partners with large service delivery organizations (public and private) and provides them with continuing medical education and refresher training courses.  Aahung tries to target all cadres of health care providers including doctors, nurses, midwives, lady health workers, family welfare workers and lady health visitors.    

Once again due to the taboo nature of the topic, very few people are comfortable to openly discuss sexual and reproductive health related issues.  Hence, it is not surprising that there are so many myths and misconceptions related to sexual and reproductive health.  Myths range from something as harmless as believing that you can not eat spicy food during menstruation to believing that you can abort a pregnancy using herbal sticks.  Some of these myths lead to extremely dangerous practices, which can lead to serious infections, dysfunctions and even death. 

Aahung provides a forum and safe space to discuss sexual and reproductive health concerns and aims to impart age-appropriate and accurate information on these issues.  Our key strategy involves partnering with organizations having large community outreach and providing them with the information, education and communication tools and materials o impart this information to members of their communities.  In addition, Aahung tries to utilize print, radio and television to impart education on these issues amongst the general public

Donor Agencies
Aahung is grateful to the following organisations for their generous support:

Oxfam

The Packard Foundation

IWHC (International Women's Health Coalition)