Growing up in Northern Nigeria meant seeing girls my age drop out of school, either because they were married off as child brides, or got pregnant and couldn’t continue their education. A cycle that has gone on for decades, mostly because there’s a lot of shame reserved for women by tradition, religion or societal expectations. Sex, menstruation, and pregnancy, all natural phenomenons have somehow become shame points for women and girls. Ending the taboo and shame cycle around Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights topics became a personal passion that led me into the SRHR space at as early as 17 years of age; volunteering, advocating and working to improve the quality of life and standard of living of young girls.
In view of this, when YOTA presented me the opportunity to further this work by attending the largest scientific conference of family planning in Thailand, I accepted it with open arms and a grateful heart. With less than a month’s notice and several visa restrictions, attending the conference seemed less and less possible with each passing day. However, what would appear to be a miracle of some sort, a sudden twist of events – and a little credit to my doggedness to attend – my visa application, approval and departure all happened in the space of the last 3 days of the deadline. 37hours and 30,000 feet later, I arrived at the beautiful city of Pattaya, Thailand, as a delegate representing YOTA at the 6th International Conference of Family Planning—the largest global platform for countries, organizations and individuals passionate about sexual and reproductive health care, rights, and resources—with the 2022 theme, “Family Planning + Universal Health coverage: Innovate, Collaborate, Accelerate”.
Shortly after my arrival, with swollen feet and a jet-lagged body, I attended the opening ceremony which began with traditional music and performances from the Thai people, as well as welcome speeches from notable participants. Worthy of note is Melinda French Gate’s speech, which stressed the need for family planning especially for young girls, stating that “contraceptives let women be who they want to be, a mother of one or a mother of none”. This was a particular favorite for me, because it highlighted a problem I am passionate about solving; lack of access to safe sexual and reproductive health care, education, rights and resources, especially for girls in Northern Nigeria where words like contraceptives and condoms are usually frowned upon, leaving girls to no or unsafe options.I am however glad we have began having conversations around safe and accessible contraceptives for adolescents, as well as their rights to choose whether, when or how to have children, and how many that will be. This further strengthened my resolve for advocacy and activism for girls in Nigeria.
Other notable voices like the deputy Prime ,Minister of Thailand, Mr. Anutin Charnvirakil and the Executive Director of the UNFPA, Dr. Natalia Kanem, beautifully welcomed all delegates to Thailand. With the unique structure of the conference, several sessions were programmed to happen simultaneously, which gave attendees the option of choosing to attend the sessions that best relates to their scope of work. The second day of the conference was my favorite, as I attended the session on Family Planning access in Africa. I had the opportunity to highlight the recent directive from the Nigerian Ministry of education to remove Sex Education from the Basic Education curriculum, which almost no one at the conference knew about. I was then invited to meet with National Director for Teens Mata back in Nigeria, to further discuss advocating for access to Sexual and Reproductive Health care, rights, education and resources for girls in Nigeria.
The highlight of the entire conference for me was day 3, where the “Women of Impact” session was held to spotlight women using their voices and platforms to change the world—A particularly inspiring and challenging session for me, seeing that I am putting in the work to become a woman of impact, myself. It was at this session I promised to be back at the next conference in 2025, not only as a delegate or attendee this time, but as a speaker, awardee or panelist. That’s three years to put in even more work!
The fourth and final day began on a very light note with meet and greet sessions, karaoke, and a tour of the various booths and poster stands. It was particularly set aside for networking and collaboration, which I was sure to maximize to meet other young passionate change-makers from across the world. Notable mention is meeting an amazing Doctor from John Hopkins University (name withheld), with whom I am having conversations on how to accelerate access to SRHR resources for the African girl. Day 4 ended with the closing ceremony, where participants were hosted to a beautiful dinner and award night, celebrating the work of governments, organizations and individuals ensuring family planning and universal health coverage for all.
In non-conference related stories, The weather and timezone difference, language barrier and food range, were very difficult for me to adjust to. Although there was little opportunity to explore the beautiful city of Pattaya due to the tight schedule of the conference, I was glad to have visited the famous Terminal 21 mall and explored the night markets and night life of Pattaya on the last day. Living just beside the famous 3km long Pattaya beach for 4 days was also such a dream.
It was a truly beautiful, once in a lifetime experience and I am glad I contributed to achieving the goal of the conference which was to “Innovate, Collaborate and Accelerate access to family planning”. I cannot wait to be back in 2025 as a speaker, panelist or awardee with even more results. Thank you to YOTA and their sponsors for diligently investing in young Africans for the greatest ROI; a truly better Africa.
