Turkish Family Health and Planning Foundation

Created at a time when FP and reproductive health (RH) were considered somewhat taboo in largely Muslim Turkey, TAPF uses communication in its service delivery model, its advocacy projects, and its social marketing campaigns. One key focus of TAPF's work has been setting up 15 RH clinics, and then working to elevate RH on the public agenda by showing that clinics can be friendly, neat, and well organised to provide better services to clients. These clinics go beyond the provision of contraceptives or RH care by providing sex education for youth, educating women in Adult Education Centers, offering RH education to those serving in the army, and making women aware of their human and reproductive rights.

TAPF uses various types of mass media to introduce conservative communities to such FP tools as condoms - developing its communications with sensitivity and attention to context. For instance, staff and partners chose the name "Okay" (OK) - presumably "catchy" but not embarrassing to the person buying it - for the generic condom that TAPF would market. TAPF's advertising agency came up with a plan to first send out teasers to the national press about OK to create curiosity. After a week of teasers, TAPF advertised the OK condom in newspapers and in television spots that never mentioned the word "condom", instead acknowledging potential embarrassment without exacerbating it ("For a healthy and happy sex life there is Okay now, is it Okay?" The young adults in the ad giggle, look at each other, and say "Okay.") As indicated by this advertising strategy, TAPF has used the entertainment-education (EE) approach to produce such feature films as "Berdel" ("The Exchange"), which focuses on women's status and FP.

Efforts to build partnerships and foster participation have characterised TAPF's work. Partners include the government, the mass media, the business community, non-government organisations (NGOs), and international donor agencies. TAPF was able to collaborate with the entertainment industry and convince it to provide labour free of charge or for only a small fee. Community participation is also central; TAPF staff work on increasing community awareness and advocacy and participation at all levels.

Family Planning, Population, Youth, Women, Rights.

In the eastern part of Turkey and rural areas, a traditional lifestyle persists. Many Turkish women marry young and have low levels of education. In this primarily (98%) Muslim country, more than one-fourth of women still use traditional family planning methods; meanwhile, two-thirds of currently married women in Turkey say they do not want any more children. "The unmet need for family planning in Turkey indicates a potential for further increases in contraceptive use."

TAPF won the United Nations Population Fund award in 1994. The film "Berdel" was screened at 26 international film festivals and won 5 international film awards.