Today is World Population Day and this year the theme is looking at safeguarding the health and rights of women and girls especially during Covid-19. Our Family Planning and Sexual Health project in Malawi encompasses this and over the past two years we have been piloting this project in rural villages in Malawi.
How does men carrying water relate? Part of the project works closely with couples and after spending time with a number of them, the husbands were challenged to carry out the daily chores that their wives do to understand how much she really does. We then encouraged the husbands and wives to work together or to split the jobs which meant that tasks were finished quicker.
The couples were then asked what they would do now that they both had spare time and several mentioned the possibility of setting up small businesses, helping their children with school work and also relaxing with their partner and talking about what they want from their relationship. This included discussing the number of children they wanted and how they could manage their money better. It is these conversations that Ripple Africa believes are the key to couples deciding how to improve their futures, and most of the couples agreed that smaller families would mean that they could have a better quality of life. This naturally leads them to access and use family planning methods which are available in Malawi.
Click here to read the full Family Planning and Sexual Health 2019 report.
