Green skills for Sustainable Access to SRHR

In many communities in Lilongwe, there is low demand, access and uptake of SRHR services amongst the young people and adolescents girls  specifically in TA Chitukula, TA Chimutu and TA Tsabango including other surrounding Traditional Authorities. Among other challenges young people and adolescents encounter in accessing the SRHR services includes poor infrastructure at service points, limited knowledge about SRHR and stigmatization. But the specific problem the adolescents and young people face which contributes to low demand, access and uptake of RHRH services is lack of income worsened by long distances to the nearest public health facilities making it inconvenient and costly for young people to access the services they need. This is the problem we want to address. This convergence of obstacles leads to a lack of awareness about SRHR, poor health-seeking behaviours, and an increased vulnerability to sexual and reproductive health issues, including unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections, and unsafe abortion practices. Economic disparities contribute a lot towards limited access to SRHR services amongst the young people. An economically empowered person develops healthy-seeking behaviours and lives a life of purpose. Economic empowerment plays a crucial role in fostering healthy-seeking behaviors among young people, particularly adolescent girls as it provides them with the means to access SRHR services, even from private institutions when necessary.

MPHIA 2020-2021 results shows that the prevalence of HIV is higher among females than males, with the largest gender disparity observed among youth aged 15-24, where the prevalence rate among females (2.8%) is twice that of their male counterparts (1.4%). Furthermore, the Malawi 2023 Spectrum estimates show that up to 25% of all new HIV infections occur in AGYW. This is a national and global concern mainly if the young people and adolescents are facing lots of barriers in accessing and utilizing comprehensive sexual and reproductive health and rights. Furthermore, in Malawi Country Operational Plan 2022, PEPFAR Malawi shows that despite Malawi adopting the Test and Start strategy several years ago and  still being implemented in all sites; it has achieved very high linkage rates (>95%) across the age groups except for adolescent males 15-19 years which remain sub-optimal. This clearly indicates that the majority of the young people are not demanding and accessing SRHR services including HIV testing. The report from Area 25 Health Facility in TA Chitukula, indicates that on monthly basis, they record an average of more than 50 cases of Sexually Transmitted Infections amongst the young people mainly those from the slums of Mgona area. According to the results we gathered during the adolescents and young people’s focus group discussions we conducted as YASD,  we learnt that most of the young people , with at least  40% have negative perspective towards hospital condoms saying they don’t have a good flavour, are smelly and not attractive to use. Hence, With economic empowerment harnessed by the green skills, the economic disparity affecting the access and demand to SRHR services can be addressed. 

We propose a comprehensive project that addresses this problem by offering green skills training to young people and Adolescent Girls and Young women , including bottle cutting into tumblers, briquette making, paper recycling, organic fertilizer production, and crystalline human urine fertilizer production. These skills will enable them to generate income for themselves and overcome financial barriers to accessing SRHR services. The green skills will also act as an awareness strategy as well as a mobilisation tool so that more young people and adolescents are moved  as well as inspired to participate and get engaged in the activities of disseminating right information about SRHR, mobilising the youth and adolescents in the communities to demand and access SRHR services.

Our project uniquely combines economic empowerment through green skills training with infrastructure improvement at YFHS corners. This dual approach not only empowers young people economically but also ensures they have access to quality SRHR services. The production of crystalline human urine fertilizer as an alternative to inorganic fertilizers is an innovative environmental aspect, promoting sustainability and eco-friendliness.

Strategic Plan (NSP) (2020-2025 ) indicates that Social Behaviour change, and socio – economic empowerment interventions can help to increase the uptake of Sexual and Reproductive health services and information, HIV prevention, treatment, and care services, by providing information and empowering youth communities to adopt desired behaviors and increase demand for services. Green skills is a path to unlock the barriers of socio- economic factors amongst the young people and adolescent so that they are able to access the sexual and reproductive health services and harness the demographic dividend. The green skills will consume most of their time, making them busy unlike getting involved in most risky sexual behaviours . If they learn how to make fire briquettes, bottle cutting into tumblers, Organic fertilizer making, Crytalline Human fertilizer fertilizer making , paper recycling among other initiatives, they will be economically empowered and they will develop a behavior or train of seeking health information and services.

By training them in environmentally friendly income-generating activities such as bottle cutting into tumblers, briquette making, paper recycling into notes board, organic fertilizer production, and the creation of crystalline human urine fertilizer, we aim to stimulate healthy-seeking behaviors and provide them with the means to access SRHR services, even from private institutions when necessary.

Unlike most of the young people who do not have the income to purchase some of the commodities like Condoms and Prep among other commodities in scenarios where they cannot manage to reach the public health facility or even opting not to go to the health facility because of the nature of the youth friendly infrastructures.. As such, Without economic empowerment and improved infrastructure, these young individuals will remain trapped in a cycle of poor SRHR outcomes and limited access to essential services.

This project targets the young people both young girls and young females. It is critical for the AGYW and their sexual partners to have green skills so that they are able to feel empowered and have a sense of self care , and being responsible individuals. These are most vulnerable groups which are under-served and their SRHR needs are being unattended at a larger level. They face gender based violence, limited access to good education as well as affected by climate change effects. The solution addresses multiple issues be it access to SRHR, economic empowerment to AGYW enabling them to make independed decisions as well as gain bargaining power for safer sex. 

By empowering young people and adolescent girls economically through green skills training as well enhancing access to SRHR services by generating income for the target population along the process, we can fill the gaps related to SRHR information and demand. Since we will also work with AGYW and young people who meets at YFHS corners in the public healthy facilities, the green skills will act as a tool for mobilizing resources for improving the infrastructure of Youth Friendly Health Service (YFHS) corners in public health facilities hence promote meaningful youth engagement in SRHR cross-sector collaboration and advocacy along the process.

As an organisation, we are well positioned with the skills, competence and experience in relation to green skills as well as working with Adolescent girls and young women. We work with community structures as well as youth networks in which the young people and adolescents are found, and operates. The whole team of YASD is youththful and key decisions being run by adolescents and young women. WE are a youth led organisation with most positions being controlled by AGYW.  WE all have skills and knowledge about green skills and the products we want to provide to the youth. Through working with Lilongwe urban and Lilongwe rural youth networks, we have provided trainings to at least, 120 young people and AGYW with green skills using both online and physical meetings.

We are not starting from scratch but rather capitalise on what we have been doing only that we want to reach and serve the most vulnerable young people and adolecent girls and young women. The young people have always been part and parcel of allour programs at all levels. They have been engaged interms of designing of most of the organisational activitis even during the evaluation of the activities. Mostly, we get their inputs through focus group discussion as well as peer to peer approach. We consider every young person and AGYW being part of us, YASD. 

Our proposed solution focuses  much on equipping  the young people and AGYW with green skills, which are environmentally sustainable and economically viable using locally available resources. By providing training in areas such as bottle cutting for tumblers, briquette making, organic fertilizer production, Crystalline Human urine fertilizer, and paper recycling, we offer a multifaceted and complex approach to address economic disparities that hinder SRHR access.

It is our philosophy that the community members through local structures and the young people are taking lead and always consulted to ensure that the program is designed to the level of meeting the needs of the community we are serving as well as sustain the gains through comprehensive partnerships. 

At least, 500