YOHEDACare

As a youth-led health initiative, we discovered a particular segment of the population, mostly adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) in prisons had limited to no access to sexual and reproductive health services from mainstream health services. After assessing the needs while interacting with over 100 of the above-mentioned target audience, we sought to provide a service to address the gap that uses basic technology. We also want to stop the bias that AGYW faces when assessing sexual health services, where there is an absence of such targeting them.

Our solution is YOHEDACare, a free digital health platform giving adolescent girls and young women access to sexual and reproductive health information and services. With basic technology, users can access the required help using mobile phones. Apart from the access to vital health information, they would not get from normal healthcare services, the solution links users to healthcare personnel who have been trained in supporting vulnerable people. Users have the opportunity to interact and get help based on anonymity if requested. 

Our target audience is adolescent girls and young women between 15 and 28 years old, particularly from underprivileged communities and prisons in Cameroon. These individuals also suffer from diseases like HIV/AIDS and are victims of stigmatisation from the communities they find themselves. Due to fear of stigma, they fear going to mainstream healthcare services for treatment, information and guidance, putting them in a precarious state.

Through YOHEDACare, the target audience will freely access the right information from the comfort of their homes, linking them to health professionals through the platform. As an impact, they will be able to get help without judgement and stigma, allowing them to live full and healthy lives.

We are well suited to deliver the solution due to our many years working under sexual and reproductive health rights, especially for adolescent girls in less privileged communities, inclusive of prisons where we have carried outreaches and needs assessment. For over 7 years, our team has led interventions addressing the health needs of key populations who lack access to health services due to cost, and stigma among other reasons. As an organisation (Youth for Health and Development of Africa – YOHEDA), we have built rapport with the target audience we serve by engaging them in all stages of projects carried out. We mostly do this through focus group discussions and surveys in target areas to understand the needs while allowing access for contributions from the audience as we build and implement solutions, creating that sense of ownership. These contributions feed the design of program activities and solutions. We also work in regions the team is familiar with and have built rapport with the communities. 

Our team lead, Dr Hemes, has a deep understanding of the target communities. These are areas she has practice in and do share similar interests with the target audience. As a young woman herself, she perfectly understands the importance of sexual and reproductive health services and the difference they can make for women like her if accessible to all.  

We have 65 direct beneficiaries and 1000 indirect beneficiaries. 

The solution is highly innovative because it uses basic technology to provide a solution reaching a vulnerable target group. Through the YOHEDACARE application, we can respond specifically to the sexual and reproductive health needs of girls and women incarcerated in Cameroon's prisons. The application will also use an integrated system to give these vulnerable people access to health information and primary healthcare through telemedicine. The application brings in monitoring done online. The application will be both web-based and mobile. This can be accessed without an internet connection, making it cost-effective.

The Centre, Littoral and East regions are the 3 regions where the project will be implemented. These are cosmopolitan regions with large rural and urban populations. According to the latest Demographic Health Survey of 2018, these are the regions with the highest HIV prevalence. These are also regions where there is a high concentration of vulnerable people. There are many key people, refugees and internally displaced people.
The main problem that the project aims to resolve is access to quality information and health resources in real time for girls and women in prison. Indeed, after several projects carried out, workshops organised and collaboration with several state structures, it has emerged that very often these people have difficulty accessing reliable and immediate information on general health issues and sexual and reproductive health. It is also difficult for them to receive proper care in the country's health facilities. They also have difficulties in expressing themselves because of their status, which also affects their mental health. 

The indicators will be the number of women and girls in prison who are trained in sexual and reproductive health, the number of women and girls in prison who have access to online sexual and reproductive health care, the number of women and girls in prison who are coached and mentored, the number of women and girls in prison who have access to health information in real-time.

The solution aims to improve access to information and healthcare for vulnerable groups, particularly girls and women in prison.  The expected long-term results are

-access to information and care for girls and women in prison is improved

- girls and women in prison have a sufficient understanding of the issues related to their sexual and reproductive health - health workers have fewer preconceived ideas and prejudices about medical care for girls and women in prison - Girls and women in prison have more self-confidence and are more fulfilled.

5 full-time staff 

7 part-time staff

12 contractors or other workers

We are working on this solution since 2 years 

As an organisation well established in health and development issues in Cameroon, we spoke to several women and girls in prison about the challenges they face on a daily basis. From our discussions, it emerged that we should set up this project to improve their quality of life. We already provide health care for them.
Cameroon's population is predominantly young, and just over half are women. Girls are the most vulnerable, have the least access to primary healthcare and have the most difficulty in accessing information. In addition, the latest studies show that it is girls who are most exposed to diseases such as HIV. Although little data is available on the health of prisoners in Cameroon, we assume that it is young girls who are most at risk and most vulnerable in these communities.
People of Muslim faith are even more stigmatised because of their sexual orientation, due to the weight of religion and the community. In Cameroon, there are also ethnic groups where it is more difficult to be different than in other ethnic groups, such as the Bamilékés. What's more, in rural areas, it's more difficult to have a particular orientation because of the weight of tradition. We have taken all these aspects into account. 

This is why the beneficiaries will be selected on a disaggregated basis, by age, sex, religion, place of residence, etc.
Vulnerable women and girls have been consulted as part of this project, both in the identification of the problem and in the implementation of solutions. In addition, the team in charge of implementing this project is made up of 75% women.
The findings of our gender analysis have guided the design of the project in the sense that all activities will be carried out using a gender approach. In fact, given that we obtained the opinions of girls, women, boys and men when identifying the problem, the activities will be implemented along the same lines. For example, the ergonomics of the platform will take account of age and gender. Capacity building will also be adapted to the specific needs of each person. Mentoring and coaching will be carried out by selecting mentors close to the beneficiaries according to gender, age, social status and ethnicity.....
YOHEDA takes all these different aspects into account, both in implementing the solution and in the management team.

Key Resources: Donor network, brand, YOHEDA plateform

Partners + Key Stakeholders: Government, civil society, UNFPA

Cost Structure

Key Activities:Managing platform, Managing risk, Managing beneficiaries

Type of Intervention: training, coaching, medical care, professional advice

Channels: YOHEDA platform

Value Proposition: Financial ability to start business, # of beneficiaries and 

# of health personnel

Revenue: Optional donations, loans, subventions

To earn money, we are going to sell the solution to prisons to enable them to improve the sexual and reproductive health of detained girls and women. We will also be applying to UNFPA for a grant. Finally, we are going to work closely with the government, with which we are already partners, to receive subsidies. This solution will enable us to achieve the objectives set by the national health sector strategy in perfect harmony with the departments in charge, in particular the family health department, the health information unit and the health promotion department.