Having the salon gave her access to a lot of women
“She has tried most of the birth control plans available.”
Angelica in her salon
Angelica is a hair dresser in Awoshie (Accra) and belongs to the Ghana Hairdressing and Beautician’s Association.
During one of the Association’s meetings, there was a representative from the BCS project who came to speak to them about the BCS topics, Family Planning, Hygiene, Nutrition, Breastfeeding and Malaria Prevention.
They were asked if any of them would like to volunteer and continue to spread the news on the BCS project and Angelica was one of the women who volunteered.
For her she says the conversation opener was the stickers and posters that they were given to take with them afterwards.
She stuck them around the salon and her customers soon started asking her about it. Most of them had seen the good life branding but did not know what it was all about. She explained to them what Good Life was about and what changes they could make to their current lifestyle to achieve this.
Because most of her customers were mothers, she usually spoke to them about how they fed the children and family planning. She has two children (8 and 5 years) and is pregnant with her third. She uses herself as an example to speak to her customers on spacing children and birth control. She tells me she has tried most of the birth control plans available, so she is able give first hand information on the process and what the choice of each plan meant.
She however told them to go to the clinic to get more information on each of them. Getting women interested in birth control is not very difficult, she says. It did make sense for them to properly space their children even though they are housewives and usually have the time to look after the children. They know there are health and financial concerns to consider too if one wants to properly take care of their children and their needs.
She breastfed both her children exclusively for six months and she is happy she got that right. What she got wrong was the fact that she felt it necessary to feed her babies with as much food as she could get them to take down without throwing up. She wanted her babies to be fat so she can be satisfied that they were being fed well.
During the training, they were spoken to about the size of a baby’s stomach and how much food a baby can take at a time. She now knows better, She makes it a point of telling any mother she comes in contact about proper ways of feeding their children and how to space their feeding, making sure they are not rushed or fed too much.
She informed them about the different ways mothers can supplement their children’s food to make it more nutritious and the role patience has to play in feeding a baby with solids initially. Customers were spoken to about child nutrition and some of the common mistakes mothers make.
