What is the name of your organization?
Xari Africa
What is the name of your solution?
XariAfrica Academy
Provide a one-line summary or tagline for your solution.
Xari Africa Academy trains young Africans as SRHR advocates, driving community-led action and expanding access to reproductive health services.
In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
Kaduna, Nigeria
In what country is your solution team headquartered?
Nigeria
What type of organization is your solution team?
Nonprofit
Film your elevator pitch.
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What specific problem are you solving?
In many African communities, sexual and reproductive health remains a taboo topic, silencing important conversations and preventing young people, especially adolescent girls, from accessing life-saving information and care. The lack of adequate education and youth-friendly resources leaves millions vulnerable to a myriad of SRHR challenges, including early sexual encounters, high rates of teenage pregnancy, unsafe abortions, and even preventable deaths. Globally, over 257 million women lack access to modern contraception, while half the world is without essential health services—yet these gaps are even more pronounced in low- and middle-income countries.
In the communities Xari Africa serves, stigma, misinformation, gender norms, and poor health literacy create serious barriers. Many young people never receive comprehensive sexuality education, and when they do, it often lacks cultural relevance or accessibility. Girls are particularly affected as many drop out of school due to pregnancy or period poverty, and are rarely empowered to make informed health decisions. The health system's lack of youth-focused services and trained advocates further compounds the problem.
Without community-led, youth-driven interventions, the SRHR crisis will persist. There is an urgent need to normalize these conversations, equip young people with accurate knowledge, and build local leadership that drives lasting change.
What is your solution?
Our solution is Xari Africa Academy, a digital learning platform equipping young Africans with the knowledge, tools, and confidence to become SRHR advocates within their communities. The Academy is a growing, youth-co-created resource hub featuring animated videos on STIs, teaching guides on menstruation, data toolkits, and more. All content is designed to be locally relevant, accessible online or offline, and adaptable for future translation into African languages.
As a direct extension of the Academy, we launched the LearnToShare Fellowship, which embodies our “train-the-trainer” model. Fellows are trained using Academy resources and supported with mini-grants to lead grassroots SRHR initiatives in their communities. In our first pilot, we trained 30 young advocates across Nigeria, Ghana, and Sierra Leone.
This model works because young people are already trusted messengers. When education and resources come from people who look like them and live like them, communities are more open and receptive. Over time, these youth can also become distributors of essential SRHR products like contraceptives and medicines—bridging the gap between awareness and access.
By blending trust, local leadership, and technology, we’re not just informing—we’re activating a generation of change-makers.
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
Our primary beneficiaries are adolescent girls living in rural and hard-to-reach communities across Africa. These girls are often the most underserved—lacking access to accurate SRHR information, youth-friendly services, or even basic menstrual hygiene resources. They face layered challenges: early sexual encounters, teenage pregnancy, period poverty, unsafe abortions, and the stigma that surrounds sexual health conversations. Many drop out of school due to preventable SRHR-related issues, limiting their life opportunities.
Our secondary beneficiaries are the young people—male and female—we engage, train, and deploy as SRHR advocates through the Xari Africa Academy and LearnToShare Fellowship. These youth are empowered with knowledge, tools, mini-grants, and community support to return to their own neighborhoods and drive change from within. By equipping trusted messengers who already understand the local context, we ensure that information is not only shared but embraced.
This model creates a ripple effect: girls in underserved areas gain knowledge, access, and confidence, while youth advocates develop leadership, purpose, and a clear role in improving community health outcomes. Over time, both groups become part of a growing movement for youth-led, community-centered health transformation.
