ESD in Yemen: BHS Project
Mobilizing Religious Leaders for RH/FP

Mobilizing male and female religious leaders for reproductive health and family planning at the community level

With funding support from USAID/Asia and Middle East Bureaus (AME), ESD’s Religious Leaders (RL) Program builds the capacity of male and female RL[1] in reproductive health/family planning (RH/FP) so that they act as change agents to increase communities’ acceptance of and commitment to RH/FP programs/services and related behavioral practice. To date:

• A cadre of 40 male and female religious leader trainers of training (TOT) on RH/FP is in place. They have trained a further 115 male and 54 female religious leaders to disseminate key RH/FP messages during Friday mosque sermons, lectures in mosques and community group meetings.
• Religious leaders implemented 4437 activities reaching 419,147 clients (347,769 Male and 71,378 female) clients in Marib, Shabwa, Amran and Al-Jawf Governorates. In the last quarter RL have trained an additional 20 female RL from Amran, and 20 from Marib governorate.
• Twelve evaluation workshops targeting the male religious leaders and one evaluation workshop targeting the female religious leaders have been completed.

RL have distributed two brochures in their communities: the first is on religious opinions in support of family planning methods; and the second one contains religious opinions in support of breast feeding.

ESD continues to provide TA to: (i) strengthen the capacity of female religious leaders; (ii) develop training materials, including brochures, reference guides and flip charts; and (iii) monitor the progress of religious leaders and address their challenges and needs based on their outreach experiences.

In the Future: BHS will continue to provide technical assistance to mobilize RL specifically as BHS extends the activities within each governorate/district to involve more religious leaders under the leadership role of the earlier ones who were trained; produce additional handouts, and references as requested, to strengthen the RL positions and enable them to make more convincing arguments.

[1] ESD defines religious leaders as women and men who formally and informally reach out to community members through religious activities in their roles as leaders, gatekeepers, teachers and advocates.