What is the Youth Amplify Sexual and Reproductive Health project?
The Youth Amplify SRHR project is a one-year long project aimed at increasing the level of awareness and uptake of Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) services among young people in tertiary institutions across the southwest, Nigeria. The project will leverage on the use of digital media to reach young people with quality information on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) by engaging with students across the selected states as SRHR Champions. The champions will ensure demand generation for increased SRHR information and access to services. Click here to apply.
Research has shown that dialogue and positive guidance have been instrumental in creating an enabling environment for young people to access the knowledge of their sexual and reproductive health and rights while also creating an environment for them to access the services.
Why is SRHR Important?
The Sustainable Development Goal 3 reflects the ambition to improve SRH services for people everywhere, including young people. This is important because young people have diverse sexual and reproductive health needs that need to be catered for and access to information about SRH services will empower young people to make informed decisions about their sexual health and well-being while ensuring they are able to maximize their life productively.
When young people are empowered to make the right sexual and reproductive health decisions, they, in turn, boost the demographic dividend of their country thus reducing the level of poverty and increasing their quality of life.
Access to sexual and reproductive service is not dependent on an active sexual life. It involves information on and access to modern contraception, information on menstruation, HIV & STI’s, testing and treatments among others. Research has also shown that knowledge about sexual and reproductive health and access to quality services have the power to improve the lives of people because it boosts their confidence and empowers them to make healthy decisions about their sexuality.
What we are doing to improve access to sexual and reproductive health services?
Despite the importance of accessing SRHR services, young people face a number of obstacles accessing sexual and reproductive health services including the fear of being stigmatized for being sexually active, unavailability of quality services, lack of information about available SRH services among others.
HACEY Health Initiative with funding support from Amplify Change, UK, aims to work with young people in tertiary institutions across South-West states in Nigeria to increase awareness and uptake of Sexual and Reproductive Health services and products. The project will be implemented in Lagos, Ogun, Osun, Oyo and Ekiti States.
Tertiary education students in the participating states with a passion for SRHR are invited to apply to become SRHR Champions. 100 students will be selected from each state to participate in the program. They will be trained to advocate for increased access to SRH services by leveraging on digital media to create contents and disseminate on social media.
Empowering Young People.
Qualified applicants into the Youth Amplify project will be trained in photography, videography and other digital media tools for storytelling.
They will also be empowered to advocate with government stakeholders in their respective states to increase access to SRHR services.
It is expected that the engagement of SRHR champions will foster an increased uptake of SRHR services in each participating state and help to improve the health of young people. Applications to the Youth Amplify SRHR project is ongoing and will end on September 30th, 2020. Click here to apply.
