SERAC-Bangladesh celebrated ‘International Youth Day 2021’ on August 12, 2021 in Dhaka, hosting a ‘Youth Town Hall’ with the support of Population Action International (PAI) where young people joined the discussion meeting on the importance of time extension of adolescent friendly health centers with the policy makers on steps to be taken to increase awareness and demand generation of concrete actions among adolescents in taking health services.
On that event, Dr. Halida Hanum Akhter, Senior Associate, Department of International Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; Dr. Md. Jaynal Haque, Program Manager, MCH-Services Unit, Directorate General of Family Planning; Dr. Abu Sayed Mohammad Hasan, Programme Specialist-SRH, UNFPA Bangladesh were the guests. Dr. Halida Hanum Akhter presented some case studies on maternal mortality in our country and made some way forward from these. Dr. Abu Sayed Mohammad Hasan emphasized on the importance of ensuring the adolescents’ family planning and SRH rights. Dr. Md. Jaynal Haque described the government initiation on adolescents’ health and assured to work more with the holistic approach.
The event was designed similar to the ‘Youth Town Hall’ modality where the 30 youth participants were divided into 3 groups and a particular topic was given to each group. In the group work session, each group came up with 3 recommendations :
Lastly, Md. Salim Miah, Assistant Director (Program) announced the winner group of the elevator pitch. The Executive Director S M Shaikat made the vote of thanks in closing of the event.
Among others- Senior Program Officer, Tasnia Ahmed; Program Officer, Nusrat Sharmin Resma; Program Development Associate, Mahisun Rashti; Associate Finance and Admin Officer, Uzzel Dey; Executive Committee member Md. Mahabub Sharker were also present there.