Supporting young people is crucial. CSE equips and empowers them with knowledge to make informed decisions about their own lives.
Over the course of 18 months, FP2030 and Knowledge SUCCESS hosted 21 sessions of Connecting Conversations. The interactive series brought together speakers and participants from around the world for dialogues around timely topics in adolescent and youth sexual and reproductive health (AYSRH). Here we explore the answers to some of the series’ top questions.
Pharmacies play a critical role in providing access to reproductive health services in low-resource settings in Kenya. Without this private-sector resource, the country would not be able to meet the needs of its young people. Kenya’s National Family Planning Guidelines for Service Providers allow pharmacists and pharmaceutical technologists to counsel, dispense, and provide condoms, pills, and injectables. This access is critical to the health and well-being of youths and the overall achievement of the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development goals.
Recently, Knowledge SUCCESS Program Officer II Brittany Goetsch chatted with Sean Lord, Senior Program Officer at the Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays (JFLAG), about LGBTQ* AYSRH and how JFLAG pursues their vision of building a society that values all individuals, irrespective of their sexual orientation or gender identity. In this interview, Sean details his experiences with centering LGBTQ youth when creating community programs, and supporting them through initiatives like JFLAG’s peer support helpline. He also discusses how JFLAG has helped connect these young people to health care services that are safe and respectful, and how JFLAG is currently looking for opportunities to share best practices and lessons learned with others implementing LGBTQ helplines around the world.
Approximately 121 million unintended pregnancies occurred each year between 2015 and 2019. When used correctly, female condoms are 95% effective at preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection. Male (external) condoms provide a nearly impermeable barrier to particles the size of STI pathogens and HIV and are 98% effective at pregnancy prevention when used properly. Condoms remain the most used family-planning method among youth and offer protection from unintended pregnancy, STIs, and HIV.
In September 2021, Knowledge SUCCESS and the Policy, Advocacy, and Communication Enhanced for Population and Reproductive Health (PACE) project launched the first in a series of community-driven dialogues on the People-Planet Connection Discourse platform exploring the links between population, health, and the environment. Representatives from five organizations, including youth leaders from PACE’s Population, Environment, Development Youth Multimedia Fellowship, posed discussion questions to engage participants around the globe on the links between gender and climate change. The one week of dialogue generated dynamic questions, observations, and solutions. Here’s what PACE’s youth leaders had to say about their experience and their suggestions for how the discourse can be translated into concrete solutions.