As part of SMC's ongoing special education and marketing programme, " Shukh Pakhi", a special family planning campaign programme, was initiated in December 2005 as a pilot project. The overall goal of the project is to improve maternal and child health through birth spacing by increasing contraceptive usage.

Specific objectives of this project are to increase awareness about the importance of well being of the mothers and children in the family, position impact of delayed pregnancy and spacing on mother and child health, knowledge about family planning methods and availability in order to increase the usage of contraceptives among the Married Women of Reproductive Age (MWRAs).

The outreach programme was launched in Sylhet & Chittagong Divisions. The rationale behind selecting these two specific areas were that numerous research findings showed that Sylhet & Chittagong Divisions lagged behind other divisions on many of the health & family planning indicators. Sylhet and Chittagong Divisions have higher Maternal Mortality Ratio and Under Five Child Mortality Rate. Moreover these divisions have much lower demand for family planning and as a result they have registered lower Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (CPR) and higher Total Fertility Rate (TFR) than other divisions.

The key strategies that have been taken into consideration are:

• Involving local communities to reach most of the people and for the ownership and
  sustainability of the programme
• Using local dialects and local media Positioning contraceptive methods to improve maternal and child health
• Generic promotion of family planning methods
  

Major Programme Activities:

1. Courtyard meeting (Uthan Baithak) with female audience
2. Community support meeting with male audience
3. Using local Kazi (marriage registrar) as an advocate to counsel about FP methods
4. Miking, film shows and leaflet distribution through SMC's Mobile Film Units
5. Home visits to counsel newlyweds
6. Distribution of audio cassettes in local dialect
7. Use of local communication channel (messages on prescription pads, wall painting, outlet branding, location board, employing Peer Educators, etc.)