Produced by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)'s Flexible Fund (Flex Fund), this evaluation examines a school-based family planning (FP) intervention carried out in Yomou Prefecture within Guinea's forest region by Plan International and the Association Guinéenne pour le Bien-Etre Familiale (AGBEF). By equipping secondary school teachers and peer educators with the information to increase teens' knowledge and use of FP, organisers hoped to reduce unwanted pregnancy and allow teen girls to complete their secondary education.

The rationale for the project and its strategies are detailed within the document. In brief:

• 18 biology teachers from Yomou's 8 secondary and 2 high schools attended a 5-day training in the first quarter of 2007, where they learned about the menstrual cycle and fertile period, contraceptive methods and abstinence, and transmission and prevention of HIV/AIDS. Back in their classrooms, the biology teachers taught this information for at least an hour a week. They also transmitted the information to teachers of other subjects in their schools.
• 10 civics teachers attended a 5-day course on child-to-child education activities, then created Children's Clubs that they supervised and that diffused reproductive and sexual health messages within and beyond the school environment.
• 18 peer educators were recruited and introduced to techniques for communicating behaviour change through pregnancy prevention discussions they went on to introduce in their schools. The peer educators had a stock of condoms they sold for a small profit.
• Both teachers and peer educators referred students to 102 trained community-based services agents (CBSAs) who could respond to their FP needs, either by contraceptive provision or referral to a health centre.
• Didactic materials included specially designed posters, two per school, with the message "Abstinence ou Contraception - a toi de Choisir" (or: "Abstinence or Contraception - It's Your Choice!").
• 7,000 leaflets were distributed on the dangers of unwanted pregnancies, the benefits of abstinence, and FP methods and where to procure them. Leaflets also described the social factors leading to unwanted pregnancies among teens, and the physical, social, and economic consequences of such pregnancies.
• Organisers developed public awareness campaigns for adults, with a clear message of discouraging relations between schoolgirls and adult men.

As this evaluation document indicates, the number and proportion of teenage students who experienced pregnancy in Yomou dropped from nearly 9% to just under 3%, and remained in that lower range for the two most recent school years. Project records show that the number of people of any age who adopted a modern FP method increased in Yomou from about 700 to more than 7,800 users.

The evaluation finds that Plan International's participatory processes, including community consultation with religious leaders, elected officials, village elders, and parents, allowed adults, and teens to openly discuss and agree on the importance of the problem of unwanted pregnancies in schools. The intervention's success may also be attributed to the synergy between the school-based information and communication activities and the availability of FP methods via the CBSAs. The role of school-based peer educators was found to be especially important. Through group discussions and individual counselling, they referred their fellow pupils to CBSAs for FP services. Plan International notes that the intervention's success was also helped in part because its objectives mirrored those of the Guinean government, which had recently outlined the importance of sexual and reproductive health education in schools.

In short, this intervention combined 3 practices to positive effect:

1. Community participation from the outset. It was during community participation events that the problem of student pregnancies was highlighted, and this facilitated motivation among the local population, and particularly among school pupils, to see the intervention succeed. This success is likely because their views and priorities were taken into account from the beginning.
2. Establishing multiple channels of communication and support that students could tap into. The combination of teachers, peer educators, and CBSAs reinforced the importance and content of messages about pregnancy prevention among young people in school.
3. Teachers as peer trainers. Plan International's choice to train biology teachers, who then trained their colleagues in reproductive health matters, enhanced enthusiasm for the programme in the school environment.

Posting to the CORE Group listserv, August 28 2009.