Do They Match Report Bangladesh - World Population Foundation

August, 2010 Do they match?
Some of the younger boys mentioned that they did not visit Tarar Mela because their
parents discouraged them from doing so. They noted that as Tarar Mela talks about
sexuality issues and kids can get contraceptives for free from there, parents are not in
favour of the YFS centre. This point shows the lack of information parents have about
sexuality education, and the services provided by Tarar Mela.
More girls than boys mentioned the unfavourable opening times of the YFS centre. Some
girls said that if they wanted to come to Tarar Mela then they would have to be absent
from school. The girls specifically mentioned that the YFS centre was too far away for
them and the transport cost was not affordable for them. Although this was not a
problem for the boys, the girls mentioned that because they could not find anyone to
accompany them they are unable to come to the YFS centre. A girls walking alone is not
culturally appropriate. One older girl mentioned that she felt discouraged from coming to
the YFS centre as she was scared of the watch dog at the door of the YFS centre. Like the
boys, some girls mentioned that their parents did not encourage them to come to the
YFS centre because discussions around sexuality take place here. They said that
sometimes parents think girls are using Tarar Mela as an excuse to do something else,
meaning to hang around with the boys. One older girl said she couldn’t get an answer to
her query when she asked the counsellor of Tara Mela. As she put it: “I asked the female
counsellor how do lesbians have sex but she couldn’t answer.”
5.3 Limiting factors to providing youth friendly services from a provider's
perspective
The providers of Tarar Mela mentioned a number of factors that they think discourage
clients from visiting Tarar Mela or hamper quality service provision. The providers think
that the unavailability of medicine discourages clients from visiting the YFS centre; as the
clients cannot afford to buy medicine themselves, just being given a free prescription
does not help them much. This was expressed by the clients as well. Moreover, the YFS
centre cannot provide a one stop service, and as a result the clients need to visit other
places for services like ultrasound scans, X-rays etc. There is also a problem regarding
the catchment area of the YFS centre; this is limited to 5 km, so the young people out of
this range are not encouraged to attend the YFS centre. The providers mentioned that
not having extensive collaboration and partnerships with stakeholders like school
teachers, parents, and community leaders also affects the quality of service at the YFS
centre.
The providers also mentioned that there are several underlying organizational and
structural obstacles that hamper access and quality of the YFS centre. Such as
bureaucracy, budgets, salaries, motivation, monitoring & evaluation, and structural
feedback on functional performance of staff. The low salaries was mentioned primarily by
almost all of the staff members Supervisors said that it was hard to motivate their staff
to work hard for such a low salary. Lack of training came as the second highest
organizational limitation for quality YFS. None of the staff who are related to YFS,
including physicians, peer educators, youth organisers and program management
committee members have received any training. Only youth counsellors received
training: one training course of 5 days on value clarification and one on counselling.
From the interviews it was clear that the staff did not have any basic training on issues
like gender sensitivity and youth friendliness. It was also stated by the providers that the
mid level and lower level staff did not receive enough appreciation from their superiors.
Two staff mentioned that staying away from home for too long demoralized them,
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