EDEAN’s Approach to Increasing Fertility Awareness and Demand for Family Planning in Karamoja, Uganda

Developed and tested as part of the FACT Project, EDEAN is a social and behavior change (SBC) intervention that effectively increased fertility awareness and demand for family planning in the Karamoja region of Uganda.

Grounded in formative research, EDEAN was piloted between 2016 and 2017 as a 6 month peer learning and community theatre intervention that could diffuse fertility awareness and family planning information among socially marginalized Karimojong communities. EDEAN was designed as a community group engagement approach, providing information that individuals could learn and apply to their own lives and diffuse among their social peers and networks.

EDEAN places collaboration with the community at the center of the intervention. In each community, a pair of trained Moderators facilitates gender-synchronized peer group meetings, rehearsals, and performances to 10 male and 10 female youths on four topics:

1. Couple Communication
2. Menstruation
3. Fertility
4. Family Planning.

After each set of peer group meetings and rehearsals, the peer group acts out moderated performances on each topic to share information and spark reflection about the content among community members. These dialogues center on deconstructing norms and beliefs around fertility awareness and family planning and diffusing this accurate knowledge throughout their community.