PPAG @ 60: ‘Treat Young People as Partners, Not Beneficiaries’ — Dr Charles Ayiku Ayiku

The Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana (PPAG) has been challenged to move beyond treating young people as mere beneficiaries of programmes and instead give them real power to influence policies and decisions affecting their lives.

General Manager for External Communication at the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), Dr. Charles Nii Ayiku Ayiku, made the call at a public lecture organised by PPAG as part of activities marking its 60th anniversary on Thursday, August 27, 2026.

Speaking on the theme xHealthier Lives, Stronger Communities: Empowering Ghana’s Future,” Dr. Ayiku Ayiku said Ghana could not build sustainable communities by simply providing young people with information while excluding them from the rooms where decisions are made.

“Treat young people as partners, not beneficiaries. A beneficiary serves; a partner decides,” he stressed.

He urged institutions to place young people on boards, design teams, budget committees, and evaluation panels, insisting that meaningful youth participation must go beyond giving young people ceremonial seats at public events.

‘The next 60 years must be about building a system’

Dr. Ayiku Ayiku said PPAG’s next chapter must focus on building systems that can survive changes in leadership, personnel, and political administrations.

“If the next 60 years were about building a movement, the next 60 years must be about building a system,” he said.

According to him, movements depend on committed individuals, but systems are designed to continue functioning even when those individuals become tired, transferred, or retired.

He said PPAG’s six-decade contribution to Ghana’s sexual and reproductive health sector provides a strong foundation but warned that the work remains unfinished.

He challenged stakeholders to ensure that policies developed at the national level actually reach the communities where the need is greatest.

“Any programme that is strong in a crowd but weak in the district where the need is sharpest is not innovation,” he said.

For Dr. Ayiku Ayiku, innovation should be judged by whether it solves real problems.

“A shorter queue is innovation. A community a woman can afford is innovation,” he added.

His journey with PPAG

Dr Ayiku Ayiku also used the lecture to recount his personal connection with PPAG, taking the audience back to 1996 when, as a young man in his early twenties, he worked at a community centre engaging young people.

He recalled encounters with young people who arrived with questions they could not ask at home, school or church, particularly around issues that adults were often uncomfortable discussing.

Those experiences, he said, transformed his understanding of youth engagement.

He initially believed his role was simply to correct misinformation but later discovered that the more important task was to create a safe environment where young people could speak openly.

“I arrived believing my job was to correct wrong information. I left understanding my job was to make it safe to be wrong out loud,” he said.

He identified privacy, distance, and repetition as three important lessons he had learned from his early work with young people.

He said young people were more likely to seek help when they had access to trusted people, confidential spaces, and information that was consistently available.

PPAG outlines ambitious 60th-anniversary plans

President of the PPAG Governing Council, Mr. Gideon Yaw Tekpor Leckson-Leckey, said the Association was using its 60th anniversary not only to celebrate its history but also to position itself for the challenges ahead.

He said PPAG had spent nearly six decades advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights, expanding services and empowering young people with knowledge to confront misinformation and stigma.

According to him, the true measure of the Associationxs legacy was not merely the number of programmes implemented, but the lives transformed.

He pointed to mothers who survived childbirth, young women who continued their education, and families that were able to plan their futures as evidence of the impact of the organisationxs work.

Looking ahead, Mr. Leckson-Leckey identified innovation in service delivery, resource mobilisation and youth leadership as critical areas for PPAG.

National outreach caravan

As part of the anniversary programme, PPAG plans to undertake a national community outreach caravan to take essential sexual and reproductive health services closer to underserved communities.

The outreach will include family planning services, youth-friendly counselling, HIV and STI education and referrals, maternal health education, and other essential services.

The initiative is expected to target rural and urban communities where access to health information and services remains a challenge.

Youth leadership summit

PPAG will also organise a National Youth Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Leadership Summit bringing together young people, student leaders, peer educators, disability advocates, women-led organisations, rural stakeholders, and policymakers.

The summit will provide a platform for young people to directly raise concerns and propose solutions on issues including consent, digital safety, menstrual health, misinformation, healthy relationships, and access to community services.

Mr. Leckson-Leckey said young people must not merely be consulted but empowered to shape policy and practice.

60 stories to document PPAGxs impact

Another major component of the anniversary programme is a 60-story social impact campaign designed to document and preserve the experiences of individuals and communities whose lives have been touched by PPAG over the years.

The stories will be told through documentaries, television discussions, short digital videos, commemorative publications, and photo exhibitions.

Mr. Leckson-Leckey stressed that the storytelling would be conducted ethically and respectfully, with appropriate consent and safeguarding measures.

Policy dialogue and innovation challenge

PPAG will also convene a national policy dialogue series bringing together government, Parliament, civil society, legal professionals, traditional leaders, young people, academia, development partners, and the media to discuss pressing sexual and reproductive health issues.

The Association is further planning an innovation challenge that will invite young people, researchers, health workers, social enterprises, and technology companies to develop practical solutions to sexual and reproductive health barriers.

Priority areas will include access to information for persons with disabilities, counselling and referral systems, menstrual health innovations, community responses to teenage pregnancy, and strategies to counter health misinformation online.

Selected innovators will receive visibility, mentorship, and support to pilot their ideas.

‘Count the doors, not the years’

Chairperson of the public lecture, Ms. Levlyn Asiedu Konadu, Coordinator of the Ghana Civil Society Organisations Platform on the Sustainable Development Goals, described PPAG’s 60th anniversary as a milestone that should concern all stakeholders committed to Ghana’s development.

She called on stakeholders to support the Associationxs work, particularly its efforts to protect the rights and dignity of young people and advance sexual and reproductive health rights.

Dr. Ayiku Ayiku, meanwhile, urged PPAG not to measure its 60 years merely as a story of institutional survival.

Instead, he asked the Association and its partners to measure the journey by the number of opportunities created for young people.

“Do not count the years. Count the doors,” he said.

He further described himself as evidence of what can happen when institutions open doors for young people.

“I am not the achievement. I am the evidence,” he declared.

He credited PPAG’s volunteers, counsellors, nurses, trainers, drivers, and staff for creating opportunities that enabled people like him to grow and contribute to society.

As PPAG enters its 60th anniversary era, the central challenge emerging from the public lecture is therefore not simply how to celebrate six decades of work, but how to ensure that the next generation inherits stronger systems, greater opportunities, and a health sector in which young people are not merely spoken for but are trusted to speak, participate, and decide.

x