The International Youth Alliance for Family Planning (IYAFP) and SERAC-Bangladesh, with the support from EngenderHealth, Ipas, and Family Planning Association of Bangladesh (FPAB) organized the Bangladesh 1st National Youth Conference on Family Planning (BNYCFP 2016) on September 6, 2016, Tuesday at Biswa Sahitya Kendra, Bangla Motor, Dhaka.
Three plenary sessions were spoken by Director General of DGFP Mohammad Wahid Hossain NDC, Country Representative of EngenderHealth Dr. Abu Jamil Faisel, Country Coordinator of IYAFP S M Shaikat, Director (MCH) Dr. Mohammad Sharif , Assistant Professor of Dhaka University Dr. Sanzida Akhter Nira, Country Director of Ipas Bangladesh Dr. SM Shahidullah, Executive Director of Bandhu Shale Ahmed, Atiqur Rahman of SERAC-Bangladesh, Bristy Hossain of Durbin Foundation, and Runu Akter of RHSTEP.
Plenaries were moderated by Editor of News Hour Dr. Tareq Salahuddin, Senior Reporter of Daily The Asian Age Abdul Malek Manik, and Coordinator of Women Chapter Marzia Prova. The Director General of DGFP Mohammad Wahid Hossain said, “the government is committed to provide sexual and reproductive health services to youth and adolescents, and in its next five years plan the DGFP will introduce free of cost sanitary pads to all adolescent girls”.
In addition EngenderHealth, Ipas Bangladesh, FPAB, and IYAFP organized several capacity development workshops with hundreds of young national youth delegates joined the conference from across the country. Speakers stressed about including young people at the heart of every discussion around policies and programs on sexual and reproductive health and rights, and implementation of Sustainable Development Goals on reproductive health and gender equality in Bangladesh.
This conference has a background of organizing the youth pre-conference at International Conference on Family Planning in January in Bali, Indonesia, and organizing youth corner at 12th International Congress on AIDS in the Asia and Pacific (ICAAP) in March in Dhaka.
