The use of participatory communication strategies on condom use education among youth at Naguru Teenage Information and Health Centre

Abstract

The study set out to establish the influence of participatory communication on condom use education among the youth between 18-24 years at Naguru Teenage Information and Health Centre. The study was premised on the following research objectives; to find out how participatory communication has been used to influence condom use education, to establish the level of participation of youth in condom use education and to come up with strategies to enhance youth participation in condom use education at Naguru Teenage Information and Health Centre. The researcher adopted a case study design using both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The researcher used survey research to collect quantitative data, whereas qualitative data was collected using interviews and focus group discussions from a total of 80 participants. The study found out that most of the clients at Naguru Teenage Information and Health Centre are youth between the age of 12-18 years and majority of these youth are single. These youth engage in participatory communication through health talks, interactive speeches, debates, interactive clubs and radio talk shows. On the second objective, it was found out that there is a high level of participation among youth at Naguru Teenage Information and Health Centre in condom use education through the available participatory communication initiatives. The study further discovered that a variety of strategies can be used to enhance youth participation in condom use education. These include: sensitizing youth on presence of Naguru Teenage Information and Health Centre, engaging in radio talk shows on health-related matters, integrating the youth livelihood programme in the programmes of the institution, making youth comfortable while they are at the Centre, training youth on effective interactive speeches and supporting youth visions and missions. It is recommended that future research should consider a longitudinal design in other parts of the country such as southern and northern Uganda in order to support temporal and generalization inferences. The research concludes that using participatory communication as an intervention approach helps to empower local people, mostly youth to address their own problems by themselves.