Family Planning in the countryside

Fishing game for Family Planning information

The famous banana - condom demostration

The kids were learning along with the adults - how does the pill work?

We held our last health session in the countryside this past Saturday. Our last topic was Family Planning and it was a hit. We actually held two sessions on Family Planning since there wasn't enough time in one afternoon to talk about all the methods that partners can use. Women had questions, were laughing and hopefully walked away with some more knowledge. Lots of questions about the pill and the "injection." Can you never get pregnant again after you use them? At most of our sessions it wasn't so much just adult sessions; the kiddos were there with us listening, playing games and answering questions. In Peruvian culture kids are always included. They are exposed at such a young age to real life things that most adults would never dream of in the U.S.

I hope that the new health information is truly used. I am finding more and more through my conversation with women that they have very little power or say in decisions with their partners. Often times they have to ask their partner for permission to go somewhere or do something. So I wonder how this translates to health decisions and how much power women can exercise. We didn't address this topic in our class, but with more informed women I can only hope for some type of shift in power. I also realize this doesn't happen overnight, so in the meantime we have got to support women in any and all ways possible.