Member Associations

Founded in 1957, the Jamaica Family Planning Association (FAMPLAN) pioneered family planning services in Jamaica and played a major role in establishing government policy and programmes. FAMPLAN supports the national programme by providing family planning information and education and offering services to underserved peripheral communities. As an adjunct to government provision, FAMPLAN provides sterilization facilities. The organization is a major advocate of the need to institute sex education in schools and of the need to develop greater understanding of, and support for, family planning among leaders. The Member Association seeks to heighten awareness of its work in the media and among professional groups. One of FAMPLAN's key objectives is to integrate HIV and AIDS and sexually transmitted infection (STI) services into its overall family planning offering. Staff highlight the dual benefits of condom use for the prevention of both unwanted pregnancy and STI transmission, including HIV. An important part of the Association's work is to empower women to assert their right to refuse unsafe sex, by teaching them safe sex negotiating skills. FAMPLAN is an associate member of the umbrella organization the Caribbean Family Planning Affiliation. 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.

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/