|
Name of the project: “USAID’s Shukhi Jibon” Programme Area: Adolescents and youth with sexual and reproductive health information and services Duration: May 2021 to April 2023 Funded by: United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Managed by: Pathfinder International (“Pathfinder”) Implementation area of PHD: Four Upazila from Kishoreganj district (Kishoreganj Sadar, Karimganj, Hossainpur and Pakundia) of Dhaka region and Four Upazila from Moulvi Bazar district (Srimangal, Moulvibzar Sadar, Rajnagar and Kamalganj) of Sylhet Region. Target audience: Adolescent couple, First Time Parent (FTP), Parents/ family members of Adolescent Couple /FTPs, Adolescent (10-19), Youth (20-24) and Tea Garden Adolescent girls and mothers. |
Goal: The project goal is “To increase the service seeking behaviour among the target adolescents and youths for SRH services supported by informed, empathetic and responsive healthy social environment and knowledgeable peer support”. Bangladesh, particularly in the selected geographical areas, major information gaps exist concerning Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) and its knowledge, attitudes and practice among adolescents. Adolescents and Young people are predominantly vulnerable to a wide range of variables, such as peers' influence, media projection of sexuality, and access to contraceptives, informing and shaping their behaviour. Adolescents at risk are often difficult to reach as many are illiterate, school dropout and unemployed. Also, some adolescent issues are rooted in society's socio-cultural norms (tea gardens), which are not addressed properly. The most vulnerable groups are adolescent couples and First Time Parents (FTPs) as the targeted geographical areas have a high early marriage rate. Overall, the projects identified the bottleneck problems to reach adolescent with SRH messages and services using the Tanahashi Model. It determined a need to develop an informed sphere of influence that is most important to adolescents and meets their information apatite on SRH. The project will address the problems mentioned above by creating an informed sphere of influence on SRH issues for adolescents at four levels- Peer, Family, Community and School during the major adolescent life events- Menarche, Schooling, Entry to Marriage and First Birth. The project has 6 major objectives, likely Objectives-1: To increase the access to accurate SRH information by target adolescent and youth and their family Objective 2: To increase access to information on SRH at local facility level (UHFWC and CCs) Objective 3: To enable an information friendly community environment for young and adolescents to empower them on SRH decision making Objective 4: To improve knowledge of adolescent at school on SRH and SRHR Objective 5 : To improve Adolescent Health and SRH knowledge at low coverage areas like Tea Garden and HTR areas Objective 6: Partnership for modelling and scale up social media and entrepreneurship based innovative approaches for reaching adolescent with SRH message |