DJ Vas, Mai Patai appointed Family Planning champions

24 Apr, 2022 - 00:04 0 Views
DJ Vas, Mai Patai appointed Family Planning champions Respina Patai aka Mai Patai

The Sunday News

Johnsias Mutonhori, Sunday News Reporter
THE Zimbabwe National Family Planning Council (ZNFPC) has appointed 98.4 radio presenter Elias Maginya aka DJ Vas and award-winning gospel artiste Respina Patai aka Mai Patai as Champions of family planning, sexual and reproductive health for the Midlands province.

Vas will be an advocate for adolescence sexual and reproductive health with youth between the 10 to 24 years, and Mai Patai will be a complainer for Family planning working with the youth from 25 years and above.

Speaking to this publication, Vas said he feels honoured and pledged to work hard to vitalise positive healthy comportments in the Midlands province.

Family planning

“I want to assure the Midlands province that I am going to work tirelessly to promote positive health seeking behaviours and encourage young people to make informed health and reproductive choices.

This is so inspirational that I started to work as a peer educator under National Aids Council back in 2014 and I feel humbled and honoured to be appointed champion by the Zimbabwe National Family Planning Council for the whole province,” he said.

Mai Patai said family planning and culture are sacrosanct and she vowed to work towards empowering and enlightening people about the rectitude of family planning.

“Family planning is important because it occurs in our everyday lifestyle. Men and women would make use of it in our everyday life including myself.

People need to be educated and empowered for them to see the goodness of Family Planning. I am also the face of ZNFPC Midlands Province so I’m carrying a crucial role, I stand firm for my organisation as I do to my husband, family and music,” she said.

ZNFPC provincial manager Karen Dzuke said Vas and Mai Patai appointments were based on merit and their profiles fit the task.

“The two were selected due to their keen interest in uplifting the health of the general public. These were identified by a number of stakeholders and we eventually settled for them and their profiles fit very well with the requirements of a Champion,” she said.

Modern contraceptives

Dzuke also highlighted that, in the year 2020, ZNFP was working towards increasing the uptake of modern contraceptives and concurrently reducing teenage pregnancies.

“Previously during the period 2016-2020 the national family planning aimed at increasing the modern contraceptive prevalence from 59% to 68 % by 2020 and reducing teenage pregnancy rate from 24% to 12% in the same year.

“Of the two goals the modern contraceptive prevalence rate was achieved at 69% and an additional 412 0000 new family planning users at national level and 67 percent at provincial. We also managed to avert 700 000 pregnancies and 154 000 unsafe abortions.”

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