Sukh - A Family Planning Urban Health Initiative of Pakistan

Sukh Initiative is a 5 year (2013-18) project emerged out of commitments made at London Summit of July’12 in partnership of; Aman, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundations. Sukh aims 15%... [ view full abstract ]

Sukh Initiative is a 5 year (2013-18) project emerged out of commitments made at London Summit of July’12 in partnership of; Aman, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundations. Sukh aims 15% increase in modern contraceptive prevalence rate (MCPR) from current rates, in selected one million, poor and underserved peri-urban, communities in Karachi, a metropolitan city of Pakistan.

Methodology: The menu of interventions includes: door-to-door service delivery, motivation and counseling through face to face discussions and dialogue with women, men and youth by 200 community health workers; provision of a 24/7 help line to support the face to face engagement, and family life education to girls and boys. To improve quality of services to increase access to FP, Sukh strengthens services locally available and has developed capacity of maternity homes to offer quality post-partum and post abortion family planning services.

Results: The baseline show with 97% awareness of FP with current usage of modern contraceptives of only 32%. Unmet need for FP is 24%, whereas female literacy is 64%. Inclusion of 14,153 new users in its 3rd year was possible with 202,162 household visit, mobilizing women to access services from 40 public and private sector clinics that have been upgraded to provide quality FP services. 20 high schools have been equipped to provide FLE training to students 15 to 18 years of age.

Conclusion: Sukh is a prototype that takes a comprehensive, multidisciplinary, multi-dimensional approach that serves to offer multiple solutions that build an eco-system that responds to a variety of barriers to modern contraceptive use in these communities. Sustainability of Sukh can be seen on several levels; through changed social norms within the intervention community with regards to FP, and, institutionalization of key solution levers, especially provision of quality FP services.