Member Associations

The Association Congolaise pour le Bien-Etre Familial (ACBEF) opened its doors for the first time in 1987. Then it was a small operation dedicated to attending to the sexual and reproductive health (SRH) needs of the urban poor. 25 years later, ACBEF reaches out to the whole country through a network of over 100 community-based distributors (CBDs) backed by static clinics and permanent staff. In addition, ACBEF relies on over 1,000 volunteers, including fully-trained peer educators and a Youth Action Movement.  ACBEF provides a comprehensive range of services covering integrated family palnning, voluntary counselling and testing (VCT), prevention and management of HIV and AIDS, post-abortion care, antenatal and post-natal care, youth-friendly education and information projects, contraceptive and laboratory services. Stigma and taboos around HIV and AIDS are strong in Congo, and ACBEF is engaged in major re-education and sensitization on this front. ACBEF aims its work at a wide public, with particular emphasis on young people (aged 25 and under), internally displaced people, sex workers and women of child-bearing age. Work occurs in both rural and urban areas. With high visibility in the national media, ABCEF is making major inroads in SRH in a very difficult environment. ABCEF works in close partnership with the government’s ministries of Health, Foreign Affairs, and Gender, and with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) including Jeunesse Action Sida. ABCEF receives financial support from the European Union, UNFPA and the Congolese Government.   Website: http://www.acbef.org/

Founded in 1976, the Dominica Planned Parenthood Association (DPPA) focused on providing information and education to support the government’s clinical service delivery programme in its early years. It began delivering contraceptive services in response to the significant contraceptive needs of Dominicans (particularly among teenagers), and the staffing constraints of the government programme. As a result, people could be sure of at least one inexpensive, private outlet where their family planning needs could be fully met. DPPA’s clinic is located the centre of the capital city and provides a range of services including family planning, pregnancy tests, family counselling and PAP smear screening. There’s an established community outreach programme which provides family planning through volunteers and shop owners, and an extensive programme of information and education activities. These include distributing pamphlets and posters, broadcasting short talks about family planning on radio and television and conducting community discussions. The negative effects of Dominca’s high adolescent pregnancy rate are aggravated by local practices that force pregnant girls to drop out of school permanently. To reach young people, DPPA provides sexuality and life skills education in secondary schools and to adolescents outside the school system through rap sessions, lectures, discussions and films. DPPA has also established an Under 20 Club, a teen group that trains its members as peer educators. BFLA is an associate of an umbrella organization known as the Caribbean Family Planning Affiliation Ltd (CFPA). The Caribbean Family Planning Affiliation (CFPA) is the only regional non-governmental organization (NGO) devoted to family planning and sexual and reproductive health in the Caribbean. CFPA serves 13 island Member Associations and 5 Associate Member Associations in the Caribbean, Central and South America. It supports these Associations with technical assistance and materials, and represents their collective interests at IPPF meetings and in the Caribbean region among governments and NGOs. CFPA Member Associations are located in Anguilla, Antigua, Aruba, Bahamas, Bermuda, Curacao, Dominica, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Nevis and St. Kitts, St. Lucia and St. Vincent. CFPA Associate Member Associations are located in Belize, Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago. The CFPA does not offer any clinical services or distribute family planning methods to clients, but rather focuses its work on governance and institution-building among its Member Associations. The CFPA oversees, manages and analyses core grants to 7 Caribbean Member Associations. The CFPA also submits project proposals for donor funding on behalf of the Associations. DPPA's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Dominica-Planned-Parenthood-Association-154855487890859/