Watch Share-Net Bangladesh Knowledge Fair 2022

The general objective of this KF is to disseminate updated research and evidence across the  wider community of those who are involved in any form with SRHR. The specific objectives are

• Generate new evidence and disseminate 
• Build strong network across the community of SRHR 
• Share the best practices/ learnings/ challenges
• Influence to generate thematic guide for upcoming SRHR agendas and push the community to work around the theme 
• Engage youth in SRHR information

This year’s theme of “7th Knowledge Fair 2022” is “Know Better-Be Stronger: Access to Quality Information on SRHR”; 

Though Bangladesh has  made tremendous progress in digitization and information  dissemination, proper information on SRHR is barely considered a necessary element  of health care. Due to the limited availability  of the right and accessible information on family planning  and contraceptives for instance and due to not having proper  information about where to get these (Mostafa Kamal, 2012) many  women get unwanted pregnancies. People in both urban and  rural areas including youth and adolescents in Bangladesh face  problems related to their sexual and reproductive health and rights.

During this Knowledge Fair, the following three main questions will be elaborated:

• What is the current situation related to accurate quality information on SRHR for rural and urban people and youth (when is it effective?)  
• What are different important SRHR issues for the target  groups (young people in the rural and urban areas of  Bangladesh)? and  
• How to provide the target groups successfully access to this  quality information on SRHR. 

The theme of the Fair is selected under the bigger trajectory of SRHR including an attractive agenda with different sessions, including plenary sessions, scientific paper presentations, poster presentations, stall exhibitions and the annual SRHR champion. All of these activities make the Knowledge Fair a unique and engaging experience for both the experts and practitioners. 

The aim of SNBD is to make SRHR related knowledge, information and research accessible for the  wider community of professionals and to encourage/enable cross learning/sharing. More precisely, the five main aims of SNI are 

• Knowledge Generation 
• Knowledge Sharing 
• Knowledge Translation 
• Promotion of Knowledge Use and 
• Network Development. 

The annual “Knowledge Fair 2022” includes all these aims and came up with this abridged message “Know Better – Be Stronger” as its event slogan. 

Bangladesh has approximately 52 million adolescent and youth population, amounting to one-third of the country’s total population (UNFPA, 2015). Essential information about SRHR is often not provided to them while they desperately need it.  Bangladesh has the highest adolescent fertility rate in South Asia. 1 girl in 10 has given birth to a child before the age of 15 whereas 1 in 3 adolescents becomes a mother or pregnant by the age of 19 (Islam et al., 2017). Sexuality education, and access to sexual health and rights, remain taboo and is rarely taught in educational institutions, while some progress has been made. Among others, the Ministry of Education recently included Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) at the SSC level.

It has been found (Ahmed et al., 2015) that a low level of knowledge about SRHR, often is the result of the unavailability of accurate information. This may be due to the high acceptance rate of taking services from traditional healers, for example, kabiraj (traditional practitioners and these persons do not have any institutional education), and quacks (religious leaders of the community) (Rafei & Roy Chaudhury, 2002). 

On the other hand, unmarried adolescents and youth in rural and urban areas, get sometimes wrong information from their friends or families which may make them sensitive to risky sexual behaviour (resulting in GBV, unwanted pregnancies) and vulnerable to different diseases like HIV/AIDS, STIs, STDs (NATIONAL STRATEGY FOR Ministry of Health and Family Welfare Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, 2017).

Access to quality information on SRHR is imperative, in particular young people living in both urban and rural areas. This need should be addressed properly in the first place by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare as well as the Ministry of Education. Through this Knowledge Fair, we are hoping to amalgamate the most prominent and vocal practitioners, NGOs and development organizations along with the major Government sectors.

• The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare carries the major responsibility to provide access to quality information on SRHR issues. For example, “Information Education, Motivation (IEM)”, a specialized subsidiary unit of the Directorate General of Family Planning (DGFP) which is responsible for quality information about the government’s policies and implementation activities. 
• The provision of Information, Education and Communication (IEC) on several health, family planning and nutrition issues has been one of the key interventions for many years and this information has been given by the IEM unit of DGFP. This unit has been working in implementing different programs of DGFP for years. 
• Moreover, the  Government of Bangladesh has a broad National Strategy for Adolescent Health to address the issue of adolescent health in the country. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) plays an important role to address the health needs of adolescents. Additionally, the Directorate General of Health Services and Directorate General of Family Planning both have an Operational Plan for addressing adolescent health. 
• Also traditional media such as Newspapers, television shows and websites should feel responsible for the accuracy of their information. They could make difficult situations and concepts understandable for a wide audience and provide a stage for different opinions and open debates. 

So, Access to Information on SRHR is also on the Government’s agenda, and here Share-Net Bangladesh can play an important role linking research, policy and practice with government buy-in, contributing to Share-Net’s mission of ensuring proper and qualitiful knowledge accumulation, systematic & understandable narration of those knowledge, and wide range of dissemination of those knowledge.