Health and Nutrition

SCSA focuses on building the capacity of duty bearers on migration and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) in response to the surge in adolscents and young people pregnancies. Partnerships have been developed with CSOs to collaborate on intergrated campaigns towards trainings, workshops and interventions on migration, sexual health and gender equity.

SCSA recognizes that tackling unintended pregnancy among adolescents requires holistic and broad-based approaches that build girl’s empowerment, help them make decisions about thier lives, including matters of sexual and reproductive health, engage the support of men and boys. Lastly, SCSA also prioritizes building capacity of ECCDs Practioners, Community Health Care Workers (CHWs) and CSOs on child health and nutrition including prevention of diarrhea. Communities are engaged through Child Health Awareness Campaigns to raise health and nutrition education in marginalised communities, and work closely with duty bearers to provide opportunities for communities to access onsite services by government.

Training Interventions

• Build capacity for change agents, which enhances their skills in SRHR-HIV and in being able to support migrants, sex workers, AYPs (adolescents and young peoples) and communities in the project.
• Working with partner organisations to provide psychosocial support to community change agents.
• Comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) sessions conducted with Adolescents and Young Vulnerable People (AYVPs).
• Build capacity of Early Childhood Care and Development practitioners in Health and Nutrition for children under 5 years of age.
• Build capacity of Community Health Care Workers in Health and Nutrition for early referral of identified cases to nearby Primary Health Care Clinics.
• Build capacity of CSOs partners in Health and Nutrition for children for support and continuity of services within communities

Through our health and nutrition interventions, we have reached  total of 2 797 children and 149 adults. The implementation of the second phase of the Knows no Borders project that started in 2021 in Mpumalanga focuses specifically on providing comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) to children, adolescents and young people (CAYP) that migrate. In 2021 the focus was on building the capacity of duty bearers on migration and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). 40 DOH officials and 51 other duty bearers were trained and seven Community Change agents were identified and equipped to conduct Health Education on SRHR and HIV. We developed partnerships with three other CSOs to collaborate on integrated migration, sexual health and gender equity.

Save the Children South Africa raised awareness on rising teenage pregnancy rates, contributing factors and the response needed. Extensive media engagements focused on the rising challenge and how this could be prevented including the role of parents in addressing the issue. Save the Children South Africa continued to respond to the Covid-19 emergency with rolling out WASH interventions in schools and ECCD centres through the distribution of soap, sanitiser, and water tanks, and educating children and adults on hand washing and hygiene.

Covid-19 lockdown restrictions affected all face-to-face project deliverables such as CSE and the process-orientated approach (POA) including reaching young vulnerable people and referral to services. Schools were closed for the most part of the year and did not allow project rollout. The Department of Health would also not hold annual Health calendar events that were planned to be used as vehicles to reach young people. Similarly, community change agents were also restricted to conduct door-to-door campaigns to reach CAYPs. We learnt that programming in the face of Covid-19 needs to take a completely new approach to mitigate the risks of losing out on implementation due to lockdown restrictions.