Training health providers, journalists, and medical representatives is a critical piece of DKT’s strategy to ensure women and men have access to high quality contraception and safe abortion products as well as accurate and relevant information. This month, we highlight the myriad of ways that DKT increases the capacity of front line providers and influencers who play a role in expanding access. 

These trainings are happening across DKT at scale. In 2020, DKT trained and built the capacity of some 253,000 health providers ― including doctors, nurses, midwives, and pharmacists.  

Read on to learn of five typical training events that happened at DKT recently.

As always, thanks for your interest in DKT,

Chris Purdy

DKT and Women First Digital have partnered to offer online courses for pharmacists, medical students, and humanitarian workers―offering over 8,000 sessions so far in 2021. The free eLearning platform at HowToUseAbortionPill, and at the discrete URL PinkShoes.org, provides correct dosages, administration, and counselling care related to the use of the abortion pill. 

In countries with evolving abortion care policies, this training can help to clear up confusion and reduce stigma—including for health providers. For example, in Kenya, where abortion care is now permissible to protect the health of the mother many medical professionals and pharmacists have limited knowledge about safe abortion. Through WFD’s training courses, these providers have been able to increase their knowledge and capacity. Watch the video here to learn from these trainees directly on how this training has helped them be better professionals.  

Julie Mukangu, a practicing nurse in Kenya, describes what she learned from and the value of the PinkShoes abortion care courses

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), DKT has provided its monthly Safe Abortion One-Day Training Program to some 700 doctors and nurses in the past year. This training offers monthly comprehensive sessions on correct MA combipack dosage and usage, administration of misoprostol in post-abortion care and postpartum hemorrhage, and demonstrations on how to perform abortion care with manual vacuum aspiration (MVA) kits. Training also focuses on women’s sexual and reproductive rights and the legality of abortion in DRC — where abortion care is permitted to preserve a woman’s health. In 2020, DKT sold 543,000 packs of abortion pills (misoprostol), 2,000 MVA kits, and averted 2,000 unsafe abortions in DRC ― a direct result of this provider capacity building.

To drive sales of the recently-registered HIV self-test kit, OraQuick, in Anglophone West Africa (AWA), DKT is training its sales teams on proper use and information of the new product. In the past six months, DKT AWA trained 52 DKT staff members, 45 Lydia Partner Clinic medical providers, and 38 Regional Community representatives in how to self-administer the HIV self-test kit. DKT and its partners are now equipped to sell the product, demonstrate its use, and point clients towards counseling and treatment services. OraQuick is a critical sexual and reproductive health product, especially for men, and DKT has utilized its launch to promote inclusive and expansive internal SRH conversations and training.

In July, DKT Mozambique trained 70 journalists in partnership with AMOG (the Mozambican Association of Gynecologists and Obstetrics). The sessions promoted accurate, unbiased, and humanized reporting on abortion care and contraception. DKT introduced the crowd to practicing gynecologists, explained the importance of reproductive health, and provided goodie bags with free samples of condoms and other products

In Myanmar, DKT is collaborating with Girl Determined (GD), a group that offers leadership and personal development training for thousands of girls and young women across the country. As COVID-19 limited GD’s in-person gatherings last year, GD shifted its programming to phone calls and found that many participants had suddenly gotten married with little SRH knowledge. GD decided to enable their peer counselors with more tools to support and educate girls on SRH and partnered with DKT to help train counsellors. DKT’s marketing team conducted three days of online training for 30 peer counselors. DKT-GD hotline services will expand as it develops further and as more girls call for information and support.