Pathfinder International organised a two-day workshop for media personnel in Karachi to highlight role of media in addressing population and reproductive health challenges.
The workshop highlighted the role of media in addressing issues, challenges and identifying opportunities related to population and health. Dr Tauseef Ahmed, Country Representative of Pathfinder International, highlighted current situation of population growth and resources constraints being faced by different provinces.
He said if the current growth rate remained un-checked, it would become a huge challenge for each of the province to allocate resources for civic enmities to people and to ensure livelihood for all.
He pointed out that media could play an important role in addressing such issues due to its reach and impact in shaping general public opinion and behaviours. He especially emphasized that media could create awareness among masses by sharing positive stories and articles in support of birth spacing.
In the workshop, Pathfinder shared the concept of healthy timing and spacing of pregnancies with the journalists and how media could help in advocating this through articles and stories. It was also discussed that journalists had an important role in positively advocating for policy level changes. During the workshop, religious perspective on family planning was shared with the media and their role was highlighted to advocate these messages through different channels of communication.
Pathfinder also shared that Sindh had become the first province of Pakistan which had developed a comprehensive and detailed road map known as Costed Implementation Plan to achieve its commitments by the year 2020. Therefore, it was important to apply a concerted effort from all fronts of society including media to achieve population commitments, they added.
Dr Jabbar Khattak, CPNE Secretary and Chief Editor Awami Awaz, strongly advocated the media representatives to highlight family planning and population health issues in their stories.
Khursheed Abbasi, Secretary General Pakistan Fedral Union of Journalists (PFUJ), said this topic was of utmost importance which should be highlighted in media coverage.
AH Khanzada, Secretary Karachi Press Club, opined that media should highlight maternal health issue in newspapers. Journalists appreciated the concepts and stats shared by Pathfidner and came up with various suggestions.
