LEAP Project- Learn, earn and prosper with SRHR

Sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR): SRH rights of girls and women and other vulnerable groups in South Sudan (e.g., persons with disabilities/PWDs) are poorly understood in society. Adolescents and youths in South Sudan would wish to get information and knowledge on SRHR issues. Many teachers lack the knowledge to teach comprehensive sexual education (CSE) in schools; the topics are often taboo due to cultural norms. Access to SRH services also needs to be improved, as evidenced by the high pregnancy rates among adolescents and youths (AY): These are often accompanied by health risks such as unsafe abortions, fistula, HIV infection, increased infant and maternal mortality rates. Widespread cases of GBV (about 2.6 million affected, HRP 2022), including child marriage, exacerbate AY risks, with 52% of women now aged 20-24 in SSD married before their 18th birthday and 9% married before reaching age 15. The birth rate for girls (15-19 years) is 15% (UNICEF, 2020). Health services and facilities for AY are inadequate and do not meet minimum quality standards. Lack of trust in health workers and long distances to services, as well as persistent social and cultural norms, including rejection by parents and guardians, make adolescents and youths (AY) and young women reluctant to take advantage of the few existing services

The project innovation will also focus on building community structure  to make the approach participatory and attractive to young people and adolescent to respond to Sexual Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR) and make service available at community level.  Packages of measures at the structural level are always accompanied by complementary measures at the individual level, as the target groups will use the corresponding structures. The degree of resilience strengthening will correspond to an adaptive or transformative strategies through the following approach.

Structural Level - The project will target Schools  adolescents and their teachers to benefit from the introduction of the CSE curriculum and SRHR clubs. The trained teachers will be able to continue to offer the lessons independently of the project and will also have a mandate to do so. This will permanently help students and pupils to perceive and claim their SRHR.  

-The project will strengthen youth-friendly centers with good standard for adolescent responsive with SRH services, this approach will increases adolescent AY's readiness to use the services and prevents negative health outcomes.

- The project will also focus on advocacy measures on SRHR with reference to policy implementation and budgeting among other things, only representing an adaptive resilience-building level due to the limited state resources and lack of prioritization in view of the needs in other areas, and are initially a first step towards fundamentally and thus transformatively changing society's approach to the issue of SRHR.

-The project will also establish livelihood incubation centres for adolescents and youths to help them acquire skilled training in the medium, and the LIC trainers will be drawn from  the existing institutions and the private sector; both structures will exchange information closely during the entire project cycle. With regard to food production and processing, the project aims primarily at locally available and demanded foods and inputs whose cultivation, production and processing techniques are not sufficiently adapted to the conflict- and climate change-affected context. In particular, space- and water-saving production techniques (e.g. vertical cultivation, small animal husbandry, aqua/hydroponics for seedlings) are to be used to counteract the often inefficient cultivation on inhospitable soils and this approach will help to earn a living reducing early marriage etc.

- Individual level - Adolescents and youths (AY) will receive training in SRHR and Skill Opportunities youths employment through entrepreneurship  SOYEE relevant life skills to make them self-determined and holistically informed decisions about their SRHR inclusion and family planning etc. as well as professional future.

- At the community level, the SRHR dialogues and positive parenting sessions as well as the promotion of understanding of different gender roles,especially for men, complement the individual level and aim to reduce the risk of parents marrying off their daughters for dowry purposes and/or as negative coping strategies. Gender roles, especially for men, complement the individual level and aim to reduce the risk of parents marrying off their daughters for dowry purposes and/or as negative coping strategies in emergency situations

-The dialogues on peaceful coexistence, the teaching of non-violent conflict resolution approaches and the establishment of the peace champions under Output 3.2 contribute to stabilizing the situation in the target communities.

 Project direct beneficiaries will

- 556 children (353 female / 203 male) 0-13 years;

- 552 AY (301 female / 251 male), 14-18 years;

- 1,400young adults ( female 1400,  1400 male), 18-24 years old Stunting resulting from childhood malnutrition or maternal pregnancy also acts as a disability later in life. Stunting prevalence among children u. 5 years in SSD is 31.3% (30.7% African average). Only 4.1% of all children (up to 2 years) consume the adequate amount of meals and variety of foods daily (>span class="Mso Page Number">Global Nutrition Report 2021). 

-PWD are discriminated against especially in rural communities. Prevailing superstitions brand them as unlucky. Decisions are made for them, but usually not with them, and since they play little to no role in community life (depending on the degree of disability), they cannot participate in decision-making processes. The lack of barrier-free infrastructure further reduces their participation in community life and decision-making processes. therefore, the project will target 100 (50 M, 50 F)  

Community Emergency Rescue for Development Organization has been working in South Sudan since 2018 responding to the needs of the most vulnerable members of the population (particularly women and children) and we have gained trust from the local communities, local authorities with strong collaboration approach and this has given comparative advantage to preposition ourselves to implement this project.

Another very important factor that has positioned us well to implement this proposed project is also reflected to our approach of implementing projects with low cost,  with very high impact and this has gained us trust from donors and project beneficiaries, and the same approach will be used to implement this project 

The diversity of our technical team is very crucial in terms of implementing and delivering projects every magnitude, and this has positioned us very well for this funding opportunity. 
CERDO also has ongoing projects in the proposed location on Food Assistance, Gender and Education; therefore, this project will integrate well with these interventions hence reinforcing the multi-sectorial response in the targeted communities. Additionally, CERDO has excellent technical capacity to manage research and grants project because of our strong principles on donor ethics and compliance.
CERDO also has strong working relationship with all key  stakeholders such as health cluster, education cluster, livelihood cluster and protection and this has given us strong level of collaboration to implement this proposed project in Juba County in Central Equatoria State.

The project intends to serve over 12,800 beneficiaries that have visited our centre and provided pyschosocial support through counseling and advices

The project solution is innovative because it will empower many adolescents and youths to make confident and autonomous decisions about their sexual reproductive health rights (SRHR) and are actively supported by their families and communities and these will have multiplier effects to reduce early marriage, teenage pregnancy, abortion among young girls in South Sudan, therefore, our innovation contributes directly to solves the local problems  in our communities directly

Another reason is that our solution is innovative because the approach focus on strengthening the capacities of teachers with knowledge on  comprehensive sexual education (CES) and these knowledge will significantly help them to educate pupils and students thus aiding them to access comprehensive SRH services within our existing facilities in the communities 

In other words, the above innovative solutions helps improving the lives of adolescents and youths and also add value to their careers

The goal of this project is to improve the knowledge and behavior of both adolescents and youths (AY) and their families and communities, as well work with the service providers and institutions relevant to the area of SRHR in the area, in order to be able to make informed and self-determined decisions about partner choice, possible pregnancies, sexual preferences free of stigmas and disadvantages or even persecution.

Additionally the project will also strengthen the economic empowerment of the Adolescents and youths and the overall  aim is to enable them to acquire technical skills that will enable them to better meet their own needs (and those of their families), especially with regard to food, through its production and processing . The very limited access to finance and assets for Adolescents and Youths  will be addressed, as these are core requirements for a sustainable development of successful business models. This will also have a positive impact on SRHR as, for example, child and early marriages are used as coping mechanisms for families' economic constraints. Moreover, as successful productive Adolescent and Youths, they can also serve as role models for other Adolescents and Youths and also contribute to the more positive perception of young people, and here especially for female Adolescent and Youths in their communities

The project will be implemented through the following outcome and outputs as outline as indicated here below;

Outcome 1: Adolescents and youth develop positive attitudes and confidence to make healthy choices regarding their SRHR and are actively supported by their families and communities.

 Output 1.1: Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) is introduced as a curriculum in schools.

Output1.2: Families and communities are trained, sensitized and oriented on SRHR to be able to support AY in their SRHR

Outcome 2: Adolescents and youth are supported to access comprehensive SRH services that are age and gender sensitive.

Output 2.1: Health care providers are trained and equipped to provide quality and gender-sensitive SRH services to Adolescents and youths

Output 2.2: Responsible stakeholders and service providers are mobilized to take action to provide resources and implement policies related to SRH

Outcome 3: Participants:inside the Livelihood incubation center (LIC) in Rajaf achieve stabilization or increase in their food production and income through subsistence production and income-generating activities.

Output 3.1 Through a Livelihood Incubation Center (LIC), youth have better access to gender- and child-friendly learning environments for livelihood-relevant crafts, and resource-efficient food production and processing techniques.

Output 3.2 Youth participants:in the Rajaf livelihood incubation centre (LIC) improve their skills on conflict management and life planning, and technical skills on resilient agriculture and food-related value chains.

This project innovation will explore how community-based interventions for

strengthening adolescent sexual reproductive health and rights (SRHR)
can be accepted and adopted at grassroots level especially in conflict affected prone areas of South Sudan and documenting community health systems that will be used to shape acceptability and adoption to improve health system responsiveness towards adolescents and youths SRHR and improving access to reproductive health services among adolescents and youths which which will significantly help to reduce adolescent girl pregnancies and marriages in South Sudan through a package of
interventions including economic support to families, payment of school
fees to keep girls in school, pocket money for girls, as well as adolescents and  youth club and community meetings on reproductive health.

The innovation will also strengthen data collection process on SRHR services that will be  collected from schools, health facilities and communities through individual and group interviews, photo-voice, documentary review, and observations. These data collection methods will document relevant
values, and conditions that will shape the acceptability and adoption process
of SRHR interventions at community level. Knowledge on such conditions
is essential for guiding development of strategies for effectively
facilitating the acceptability and adoption process, scaling up
processes and sustainability of interventions aimed at reducing SRHR
problems and health inequalities among adolescents in low and
middle-income.

The project will overcome gender issues as well strengthen innovative approach of building on inclusion that will involve everyone, irrespective of their age, gender, gender identity and gender expression in South Sudan

The project team will have 8 full time staff and 12 volunteer staff that will be through incentives and the full staff will have highly qualified technical Project Manager with  Reproductive Health background, and an M&E officer that will support and manage the core project activities.

Direct Full staff

1-Project Manager

2-Monitoring and Evaluation officer

3-Community Engagement Officer

4-Finance Officer

5- Logistics Officer

6- Cleaner

7 Security Guards

Volunteer Staff

12 Volunteers  Staff

CERDO has been working in South Sudan since 2018 responding to the needs of the most vulnerable communities living in hard to reach population in South Sudan especially the vulnerable women, girls and children. Currently Community Emergency Rescue for Development Organization is present in two states of  of the ten states of South Sudan. In Central Equatoria State, where this project is focused, CERDO has offices in all two key locations of Nimule and Juba respectively. CERDO has ongoing projects in the proposed location on  SRHR, and  has excellent  technical capacity to implement SRHR project with good relationship with authorites

The approach will contribute to humanitarian needs reduction and risk mitigation: Strengthening sexual reproductive health rights  (SRHR) and improving the economic situation and capacities of adolescents and youths AY and their communities that will help to reduces the level of dependency on humunitarian Aid espcially for adolescents and youths  and thus contributes to the prevention of further protection incidents and cases of child and adolescents youth (AY) malnutrition. The project focuses on the preventive aspect, especially through the work on comprehesive sexual education CSE in schools. SRHR issues such as child marriages, GBV, FGM, early pregnancies are addressed here before they can occur and thus become protection incidents. The project create local savings groups among adolescents and youth groups with the sole aim of reinvesting their savings profitably and provide better mutual protection for members against any shocks (emergency insurance) and these will significantly help to reduce dependence and risk of exposing young girls to early marriage,teenage pregnancy and SGBV etc in the area

The project will ensure strong level of synergies build through the interaction of the project with other existing projects  within the county and states with (inter)national actors, non-state actors or other donors: the project will contribute to the Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) for SSD and as such will also be registered in the UN Financial Tracking System (FTS). The project will be implemented in Nexus Chapeau with the AA project in and around Rajaf payam in Juba county and will benefit from experience and coordination with programs/projects of other such as Health pooled fund, NGOs, the WFP and the FAO etc. 

The project approach will apply learner-centered approaches that will promote self-directed learning and reflection in fragile contexts to strengthen social cohesion and learning environment will be design to provide practical and exploratory learning, especially for traumatized and marginalized adolescents and youths groups (AY) in a learning environment that not only teaches useful technical content, but also creates motivation, positive social relationships between adolescents and youths (AY), and new spaces for their interaction with local organizations and authorities. The project combines concepts of co-working and work-based learning, with social and political activity.

CERDO will also strengthen the capacity of 08 community reproductive health structure at county and  payam level etc, and  will conduct training of these community based structures on basic Sexual Reproductive health rights, family planning and gender in health etc. The Boma Health workers will support to raise awareness on SRHR and other health related information at grassroots level and available SRHR services. And these approach  will scale and ensure there is strong awareness raised at community level. 

CERDO has four business model and these include

1- Delivery humanitarian services with low cost  but high quality, this signifies our business model to remain cost effective in resource utilization but more resources are allocated to the vulnerable population.

2.CERDO has already an existing list of assets to support this project and this will significant add value to this project and thus reducing on administrative cost and this is a business model that scale project sustainability and ensure effective operation and coordination to delivery humanitarian services to the target population.

3.CERDO has strong business model in resource mobilization process to fundraise locally and externally to supplement an existing business and in this project the same approach will be used to mobilize local available resources to support this project and this will help to sustain this project beyond its life span.

Community Emergency Rescue for Development Organization has the following strategies in building financial sustainability and these includes among:

1.CERDO has strong financial planning and budgeting process that enables us to understand our financial needs and expenses ahead of time and making us to remain flexible to understand market changes and unexpected opportunities and these has contributed to use our available resources in a sustainable ways thus helping us to remain strategic in utilization of our resources.

2- CERDO has strong technical staff managing its resources more sustainable and this include; the internal control system within the organization allows gives strong culture in ensuring resources are well directed and use for the purpose of the project

3- CERDO has 3 years resource mobilization plan to ensure they have sufficient level of resources to undertake its strategic priorities in South Sudan.

4- CERDO has strong reporting and accountability measures in place to maintain good working relationship with her donors and local authorities and this has given us trust and confidence building with our donors