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Family planning group attends world conference

Staff Report

LAHORE: Ovulation Method Research and Reference Centre of Australia at Melbourne organised a teacher-training programme in March. It was attended by Edward Michael and Sophia Michael from the Billings Resource Centre Lahore and Shahid Hameed Khan from the National Youth Organisation.

Earlier, the three also attended an international conference titled, ‘Taking the billings method to the 21st century: why we do it and how we do it’. About 150 people from 15 countries attended the conference. The participants presented papers on the promotion and development of the Billings Ovulation Method and narrated the difficulties they faced trying to change the public attitude towards this “effective and harmless natural family planning method” in their countries.

Shahid Hameed Khan, coordinator of the Family Life Awareness Group (FLAG), an initiative to promote and develop natural family planning, recounted his experiences and discussed the problems faced in the implementation of the family planning method in Pakistan. He told participants that Pakistan was one of the most populated countries, but had low incomes, low literacy and lacked basic health education. He said in order for the birth control programme to succeed, it needed to be started in union councils.

Khan added that the first of the Billings Resource Centres had been established in Lahore in 2004. He said that the centre spread basic education and awareness, and provided service delivery to people. The first component of the programme was to build a centre and mobilise a community – a task completed by the National Youth Organisation Of Pakistan. He said that the group would now begin training couples and community representatives.

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