Jhpiego

Transforming Futures, One Young Person At A Time

Today, around the world, there are about 1.8 billion adolescents (10 to 19 years old) and young people (15 to 24 years old). Investments in their health and education can transform their lives and produce positive economic and social results. Working in partnership with young people, Jhpiego supports evidence-based adolescent health programs so they can reach their full potential and lead healthy, productive lives.

OUR APPROACHES

Partner with adolescents and support youth-led work

To ensure adolescent and youth-led design, we work hand in hand with adolescents and youth as partners in project design.
We work with adolescents and youth to help them set goals and plan their futures, connect them to health services so they can meet their goals, and introduce them to economic and education opportunities to transform their futures.
We identify and train peer leaders and build the capacity of adolescent and youth-led organizations because we recognize the crucial role that young people play as key stakeholders in the health system.

Enable youth and adolescent-friendly health care services

We provide counseling and information to adolescents and youth so they can protect their health, and we increase access to adolescent-responsive health services.
We work with ministries of health, health facilities, and private sector partners (including pharmacies) to transform health services to be responsive to adolescents and youth, making their formats more accessible and motivating service providers to offer quality adolescent health care services using behavior change approaches.
We connect adolescent girls and young women with community-based comprehensive HIV prevention, care, and treatment services. Our approach equips adolescents and youth with educational materials, peer support networks, and youth-friendly commodities and health services including HIV counseling, testing, and treatment. We also train girls who are no longer in school, providing them with business skills and supporting them to form groups where they can access capital for business and social networks.

Support community engagement and mobilization

To increase awareness of, demand for, and access to adolescent and youth health services, Jhpiego engages communities to create an enabling environment that supports adolescents and youth. This is accomplished by working with community and religious leaders to help them understand the challenges adolescents face and recognize the importance of investing in young people. Additionally, we work with parents to help them strengthen their parental communication skills with their children and to serve as parent champions who mentor other parents.

Strengthen policy and advocacy in collaboration with national ministries of health

Through technical working groups, we coordinate adolescent and youth health services at the national level and advocate for resources to support them.
We develop national policies, standards and guidelines to improve quality of adolescent health.
We work with ministries of health to efficiently scale up evidence-based interventions, like HPV (human papillomavirus) vaccination programs to protect girls and improve the health of adolescents.

Countries

Catherine Shayo (in white) poses with Rachel Daudi (in red) and other girls visiting the hospital for ASRH services. Photo by Frank Kimaro.

Power to Girls: Improving access to information and health services for adolescents in Tanzania

Catherine is one of 16 health workers trained by the Afya Yangu – Mama na Mtoto project, which has contributed to a 2% reduction in teenage pregnancies in Tanzania’s Kiteto District.