Integrating Reproductive Health and Environmental Sustainability in the Peruvian Amazon
Two days by canoe down the Amazon River, amid the lush overgrowth of the Peruvian Rainforest, will bring you to a remote 800,000-acre reserve where roughly 6,000 people make their living from fishing and subsistence farming. It is here where Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) has begun an exciting new project integrating sexual and reproductive health services with ongoing environmental education.
PPFA partners with La Asociación de Conservación y Desarrollo Amazónico (ACDA), a Peru-based environmental organization that has been working on environmental conservation and sustainability in this rainforest reserve for many years. In 2005, local communities came to ACDA asking for help with family planning services. ACDA, in turn, reached out to Planned Parenthood. Before we began supporting services and education, the communities tucked away in this hard-to-reach reserve had virtually no access to health services. Now Planned Parenthood and ACDA provide a broad range of support, including
programs that promote healthy sexuality along with conservation ethics
education for voluntary health promoters to provide reproductive supplies and health education to their peers
community-wide education sessions on topics like human rights, gender-based violence, and healthy relationships
Hear more about this dynamic project from PPFA Latin America Program Officer Diana Santana.
