Our Programs
Since Likhaan’s establishment in 1995, we have developed 3 programs in response to the sexual and reproductive health needs of the most vulnerable women and youth in disadvantaged communities. Community-based clinics run by competent and respectful health providers provide health care for maternal complications, unintended pregnancy and unsafe abortion, intimate partner and sexual violence, and other related problems. Complementing the clinics are community education, organizing and mobilization of women and youth so they learn more about their own sexual and reproductive health needs, how to care for themselves and others, and what they can do and where and how they can get further. Advocacy is done by local and national advocates to elicit action on systemic problems that require policy and institutional solutions.
Community-Based, Women-Centered Sexual and Reproductive Health Clinics
Nurse explains action of pills to young girls in outdoor event
Trained nurses and midwives run 9 community-based (CB), primary SRH clinics. The clinics provide mainly contraception, but also antenatal and postpartum care; treatment of reproductive tract infections, including sexually transmitted infections; and First Line Support and Emergency Medicine for Sexual Violence. Some clinics have been trained to provide other services, such as cervical cancer prevention through visual inspection and cryotherapy, finger-prick test and pre- and post-test counseling for HIV, post abortion counselling, and sputum exam for tuberculosis. Outside the CB clinics, the Central Office (CO)-based clinic provides walk-in services, conducts outreach clinics in similar communities upon request, and, since the Covid pandemic, holds tele-consultations for patients far from Likhaan clinic areas.
Nurse provides injectable in mobile vehicle during pandemic.
Nurse explains to young patient.
Male community organizer talks with woman patient
Community Organizing or Mobilizing
Community Organizer lets women see and feel the IUD.
Community Organizers/Mobilizers are generally residents of the community who have been selected among their peers and trained to initiate the education, organizing and mobilization of women and youth on their rights to SRH. They are the ones who speak the language of the community and make the systemic connections between individual SRH problems and, for example, cultural and religious beliefs and practices, women’s and young people’s role and status in the family, and their access to services in the health system and government institutions. They are able to lead and run women’s and youth health associations, examine problems and options, and undertake collective actions to address common concerns – such as maternal death, teen pregnancy, gender-based violence, floods and fire, lack of income and housing, etc.
Youth CO shares brochure on adolescent relationships with young boys.
Community Organizer talks with young mother and her 2 children.
Youth CO shares information with young girls.
Policy Advocacy
Old picture, Likhaan executive director joins meeting of the DOH National Implementation Committee of the RH Law.
Advocates study law and policy issues to improve the responsiveness and accountability of policies and programs, and, ultimately, the lives and health of women and youth in poor communities. They undertake researches, for example, on maternal death, national data and policies on teen pregnancy, comprehensive sexuality education, and the availability of Emergency Reproductive Health Services for sexual violence among Filipino women migrant workers. They work with policymakers, such as the Dept. of Health, the Dept. of Education and Phil. Social Health Insurance Co. They also work with women’s and reproductive health organizations to enhance the voice and capacity of civil society groups to effectively engage in participatory governance.
Old picture. Former DOH Secretary, Alberto Romualdez, and former Chair of the Commission on Human Rights, Etta Rosales, discuss the implications of the passage of the RH Law.
Likhaan staff join the picket to protest the Catholic hierarchy’s case against RH activist, Carlos Celdran.
Marchers from PILAKK (Unified Force of Women and Youth) and RHAN (Reproductive Health Advocacy Network) celebrate the final lifting of the Supreme Court’s restraining order on contraceptives.
Crosscutting
Likhaan’s Life Education Sessions in 2022
Likhaan conducted the first face-to-face Life Education Course with First Year Students of Guang Ming College in Tagaytay on September 10, 2022. The course is comprised of 8 lecture-discussions on Youth Health and Development, Youth Mental Health, Gender and Sexuality of Young People, Personal Safety and Gender-Based Violence, Common Health Issues of Young People, Teen Pregnancy and Early Parenthood, Contraception for Young people, and Reproductive Tract Infections-Sexually Transmitted Infections and HIV in Young People. The first 2 years of this course was done on-line during the pandemic.
Dr. Junice explains the mechanics of the self-evaluation form on the different aspects of youth health.
Students answer youth health evaluation form.
Group discusses a topic in one of the sessions.