Volunteer Charlotte Mar says more advocacy is needed in this area.

The Reproductive and Family Health Association of Fiji says they have noted an increase in teenage pregnancy cases.

Volunteer Charlotte Mar says more advocacy is needed in this area.

“According to our reports that have come in, we do have an increase in teenage pregnancies, especially in rural areas, even here in the city.”

She says they are now trying to come up with meaningful activities to raise more awareness about this.

“And we are trying to do more projects that used to be part of them, even for the kids that are coming out of high school. We are trying to organize something for them to do during the school holidays so they are not peer pressured into doing something that their families don’t want them to do and just engaging in meaningful work.”

Mar says they have also trained peer educators, who are in communities and have one-on-one sessions with the people.

She adds that during the pandemic, they did skits where they talked about getting contraceptives, counseling, and other aspects regarding sexual and reproductive health.

Mar says that in doing so, it increased their visibility as more clients started coming to their clinic.