This post was originally published on Being Smriti, a blog run by ASAP’s Youth Champion from Nepal, Smriti Thapa. 

Robert Kennedy once said

“This world demands the qualities of youth: not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the life of ease.”

As the global population continues to grow, young people face changing environments and circumstances that affect their sexual and reproductive health. For example, girls are reaching puberty earlier now than in previous decades. It is important to involve youth in defining quality abortion care for young women and advocating for its implementation. It is also important to build the capacity of trainers who are young and who are going to be the future service provides  to implement appropriate abortion care for young women.

With the purpose of celebrating September 28^th  The Global Day of Action For Safe Abortion, an advocacy program was organized in Everest college of Nursing, Tinkune, Kathmandu by youth champions on behalf of ASAP and MIDSON.

Representatives from 1^st yr and 2^nd year Bsc Nursing  and faculty as well as other youths from management, engineering and environmental science stream were also invited. The program was schedule to start at 10 am but due to some technical problem it started on 11:30 and ended on 1:00pm.

I, facilitated the program where following contents were covered.

• Abortion : Some facts
• National background
• Beyond 10 years of abortion
• Maternal health in Nepal: background.
• Abortion laws in Asia.
• Criteria for safe abortion access in our country.
• Legalization of Abortion in Nepal
• What is an unsafe abortion?.
•  September 28 global day of action for access to safe and legal abortion
  • Guiding principles.
  • “Breaking the silence on abortion”
  • Global campaign
  • Objectives of the international campaign
  • Use of social media for advocacy
  • Tweetathon and its importance.

The session ran smoothly and the participants were active as well. The participants were so deeply engaged throughout the session and had a lot of reflection over the topics such as prochoice and prolife, which they encountered for the first time . Some of them even had no idea regarding the legalization of abortion in our country and after the session they were glad that abortion was legal here in Nepal. Most of them were Facebook users but they were enthusiastic to learn new social media tools like Twitter. They also realized the importance of social media as tool of advocacy. All their other queries were solved and they were also advised for advocacy on safe abortion and women’s right.

Apart from facilitating these topics, amazing experience from 2nd youth advocacy institute on safe abortion practices was also shared which included the introduction of Youth champions, 2nd Youth Advocacy Institute and its objectives which encompasses  the growing need for young champions to take on the role of advocates, especially for the most challenging issues like right to access safe abortion services.

To support my fellow youth champions Sarah and Dakshitha for their initiative to celebrate Global day on safe abortion, at the end of the session, all the participants were asked to complete the statement “ABORTION SHOULD BE SAFE AND LEGAL BECAUSE…….”.

Participants came up with great statements which made me believe they will be good advocates in near future. Participants were also photographed with their statements and the session was closed after refreshment, feedback and group photo session.

Smriti sent the photos to Sarah and Dakshitha and they will be published on ASAP’s blog very soon.