Anyaka Makwiri Mentorship model

Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) among adolescent girls and young women. SRHR are the rights related to planning one’s own family, the ability to have a satisfying and safe sex life, the freedom decide if, when and how often to have children and these rights are relevant to women’s empowerment and gender equality. Globally, there are nearly 1.2 billion adolescents aged 10 to 19 years old, representing about 16% of the world’s population. About 789 per 100,000 adolescents suffered adverse maternal outcomes in 2015, and nearly 3000 adolescents die each day from preventable causes related to sexual reproductive health (SRH).

According to the UDHS 2022 , Adolescent aged between 15-19 years have unmet need of contraceptive of 22% yet Family planning is core to both demography and SRHR, yet in a global environment short on human and financial resources, it is sometimes neglected. What should be a basic right for everyone—the ability to control their fertility and choose if and when they want a child—is also very much determined by the political environment and Sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) is the cornerstone to the ability of many people to realize their human rights and achieve their full potential. Unintended pregnancy and childbearing, disease, abuse and other violations of SRHR can profoundly alter young people's lives by undermining their educational attainment, economic opportunities and ability to participate in public and political life.

Furthermore, parents of adolescents tend to say their children are young but forget they are sexually active and making discussion around their child’s sexual and reproductive service is not allowed. In schools as well information about SRHR is often incomplete and teachers are not equipped to deliver comprehensive sexuality education thus adolescents tend to rely on their peers and social media for information on SRHR.

Anyaka Makwiri mentorship model is an adolescent girls and young women -led innovation which provides weekly mentorship sessions for a period of six months on sexual reproductive health, financial literacy and development of soft skills among other sessions. The sessions are led by trained AGYW group leaders who mentor fellow peers and they are provided with mentorship manuals for facilitation, saving box, referral forms and community dialogue forms and are attached to the nearby health facility for SRHR services.

Different AGYW group leaders from different groups are trained for a period of one week where different facilitators are brought like health worker to facilitate them and also train them on how facilitate the sessions in their groups and the total number of the sessions are 35.

Girls are able to increase their HIV knowledge, discuss HIV testing/ counselling with someone, family planning, make a saving plan, and save money over the six month mentoring period.

The AGYW group comprises of 30 group members between age (15-19 and 20-24) and during the session the group is supposed to conduct a community work once a month. The health worker and VHT visits the group and provides sexual reproductive health information and services. Joint support supervision is conducted by the project team and the district local government.

Solution will enroll about 30 AGYW groups .

My solution serves adolescent girls and young women aged between 15-19 and 20-24 years.

Our Impact:

The solution builds:

• AGYW’s protective assets (self-efficacy, self-concept, social networks and financial literacy) will be improved.
• Improves AGYW’s sexual and reproductive health including healthy relationships.
• AGYW groups that has participated in the mentorship program would be resourceful and they can be used to inform other AGYW groups in the communities.

We are experienced staff who have been implementing the projects related with SRHR. We always deal with people with SRHR problems during our daily practices and we know where those kinds of people can find help. As many adolescents face a lot of challenges, they will have peer to peer learning and also be able to access youth friendly services from the trained health worker at the health facility.

This mentorship model was tested and implemented by youth power action and here in Uganda it was implemented in Agago district in northern Uganda and from which even a new mentorship curriculum from adolescent boys and young men was developed since it created more impact among the girls. Some of our team members were trainers for the AGYW in the Agago and we believe they have the skill to deliver. This solution is led by AGYW with guidance from the project staff and district local government.

A total of 90 AGYW groups have been reached with each group consisting of 30 members. 

My solution is innovative because it has been tested and implemented in Agago district northern, Uganda whereby more AGYW girls got informed about SRHR services and also related with health workers and village health teams in the community. They started having healthy relationship, improved on the financial literacy through setting both long term and short-term goals.

This innovation is an AGYW led intervention where there is peer to peer learning among the girls.

These are goals l would like to achieve next year and in five years to come.

1. Ensure enrollment of FP for AGYW  in order for them to space their children and this can be achieve through bringing the trained VHTs on FP or health worker to visit the groups always.
2. reaching out to more girls group(100) and also scaling up to another district and this will be achieved through applying for more grants and also partnership with other CBOs, NGO and government to incorporate in the health activities.
3. linking the AGYW groups to the Community development department so that they can also benefit from government  programs like Parish development model.

My solution is innovative because it has been tested and implemented in Agago district northern, Uganda whereby more AGYW girls got informed about SRHR services and also related with health workers and village health teams in the community. They started having healthy relationship, improved on the financial literacy through setting both long term and short-term goals.

This innovation is an AGYW led intervention where there is peer to peer learning among the girls.

 The organization is still growing with few grants thus having  12 full time staff, and 8 partime staff for now.

The organisation have been working on these solutions for two years now

The AGYW participation in this solution means they work in all stages of decision making and can participate with equal terms with adults at a number of levels.

Recruitment opportunities for the AGYW groups are free and fair where equal opportunities are provided based on preferred aged category as per the solution. 

Even those with disabilities also have equal opportunities to participate the group.

This mentorship model as financial literacy as part of the package where AGYW  make saving goals and start  saving their money together here the AGYW are empowered whereby they can make both long term and short goals for their households.

This work will be sustained firstly through the grant we are going to receive, secondly since its an AGYW led innovation we enroll girls' group who are willing to volunteer in order to achieve better outcomes and the girls come from the same location where they have an agreed day and time to meet on a weekly basis.