Background:Sukh Initiative emerged out of commitments made at the London Summit (July 2012) as a joint venture funded by The Aman Foundation, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and The David and Lucile Packard Foundation. The project is primed by Aman Health Care Services and implemented through a consortium of local and international organizations, in a selected one million underserved peri-urban population of Karachi, Sindh; with an aim to increase modern contraceptive prevalence rate by 15 percentage points.

Launched in 2013 the baseline (2014) data for FP in project area, as done by AKU, shows that despite 98% married women of reproductive age having awareness of any form of contraception; and 65% ever using a method; only 30% were current users of modern

contraceptive methods where as 12% preferred traditional methods, with an unmet need of 36%. Subsequently unintended pregnancies were more than 26%

Objectives:Addressing the unmet need and decreasing unplanned pregnancies, Sukh Initiative aims to increase the modern Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (mCPR) by 15 percentage points in five years, to be achieved through the following strategic objectives;

Objective 1: Increase demand for FP services

Sukh Initiative empowers women to access contraception by increasing knowledge, improving quality of services and expanding the basket of choices; contributing to the goals

Suhk Vision

Sukh Implementing Partners

The aim is to bring about improvements in uptake of modern contraceptives, through awareness raising and the promotion of positive behaviors.

Objective 2: Improve access to FP services (by method) and with improved quality of services

More than 120 facilities have been upgraded with basic improvements in infrastructure provision of required equipment’s and building capacity of health care providers to provide quality FP/RH services, ensuring infection prevention and availability of FP commodities.

Objective 3: Ensure long-term sustainability of program

Sustainability of Sukh Initiative can be seen on several levels.

The program is sustained through changed social norms within the intervention community with regards to family planning. Institutionalization of high impact practices, especially provision of quality family planning services.

An increasingly supportive environment from the government and other stakeholders for family planning and ownership of program learnings could result in the up scaling of Sukh Initiative successes, and sustaining them beyond the program period.

Key Strategies:Sukh initiative is an integrated model providing a range of interventions for enhancing the demand for and uptake of FP and RH services by women while creating an enabling environment that empowers them to make free and informed choices regarding their fertility. Sukh employs six key strategies through five implementing partners;1. Door-to-Door family planning

services: through community health workers & lady health workers

2. Tele Health Services to provide access to health information, counseling, and follow up through a 24/7 helpline.

3. Family Life Education to young people of age 12 - 22

4. Improving the quality of family planning services, availability of contraceptive method choices, and increasing access to quality FP services and post-partum / post abortion family planning services

5. Community Mobilization for creating an enabling environment, and improving the role of males members of the household in decision making for FP

6. Advocacy with public and private stakeholders for increasing the ownership of the project objectives, and sustainability of the project models

Sukh Measurement Partner:Aga Khan University, as a measurement partner for Sukh Initiative, provides an external and independent measurement of program impact through a cross sectional survey of a sample population within the 1 million intervention population in the form of a baseline, midline and an endline.

Sukh Advocacy:

Family Life Education and Youth Engagement

FP/RH Helpline Services 10,431 in-bound and 22,227

out-bound calls counseled through AMANTELEHEALTH and sms

26 Tele-Booths installed in the community

Door to Door Services

200 CHWs and 200 LHWs are covering 1 Million Population

139,000 Women of Reproductive Age (MWRA) out of potential 150,000 Married received counseling on FP/RH

Approx 46,800 current FP users of modern FP Methods of which 26,800 are new users

47,500 married men sensitized (FPRH)

Sukh advocacy has been instrumental in getting acknowledged some of the practices included in Sindh five-year strategy for Costed Implementation Plan; these include i) Family Health Day; ii) Implants by mid-level providers; iii) 1st injection by LHW; iv) Family welfare centers to provide Youth Friendly Services; and v) Quality Assessment Tools

for FWW at FWCs.

Achievements: In 3 years since its launch, Sukh Initiative has completed the following significant landmarks:

Sukh Public Sector Partners: Sukh Initiative is closely working with Sindh Government’s departments of Health; Education, Population Welfare and Lady Health Worker Program.