Dr. Halida Hanum Akhter, is a veteran family planning doctor and programme manager. She received in 2006, the “United Nations Population Award”, as recognition of her outstanding contribution to improve the health status of women and children through scientific work in family planning and health service delivery. In this interview, she expresses the challenges to talk about sexual and reproductive health in a religious and traditional society such as Bangladesh.

Talking about reproductive health to adolescents and youth is sometimes difficult, since some parents are reluctant to let their children learn on these sensitive issues, which are often seen as “immoral”. The verdict was clear: Before young people in Gazipur could benefit from the peer programme being offered by Concerned Women for Family Development, there was work to be done with adults.

This article is based on a report made on Bangladeshi young people’s effective knowledge regarding in STIs, HIV/AIDS and Family Planning. They were enquired on what they learned after participating in RHIYA activities, in order to assess the project’s implementation and the related progress at grass root level.

This article exposes the visit from Members of Parliament from Belgium, Germany, Portugal and the United Kingdom to Bangladesh, to some RHIYA project sites, since RHIYA was co-funded with the European Union. During the 6-day journey, they had interaction with youth and with government officials, to assess the ASRH situation in Bangladesh and RHIYA’s efforts on the ground.

This is the story of Mr. Hossein headmaster at the Shahid Streeti, a private coeducational school with 900 students. In this short story, he described the basis for his own decision to invite the Concerned Women for Family Development in order for the children to learn valuable skills about sexual and reproductive health.

The peer leaders involved in the RHIYA programme to disseminate sexual and reproductive health, realized that youths attending the education sessions were raising important questions related to gender issues in general and gender inequalities in particular. Indeed, these issues had been neglected in the booklets and curriculim…This article explains how peer educators overcame the problem.