Programme Towards Improved Reproductive Health and the Promotion of Safer Sex Among Young People

The project trained young people and involved them in a situation and response analysis. "As leaders of the ten implementing partners and members of the Youth Task Force, they were well prepared to implement and claim full ownership of the project."

The project aims to strengthen the national response by piloting a multi-pronged package of interventions. "An effective overall strategy to stem the HIV epidemic depends on reaching young people before they become sexual active and fostering preventive behavior change to ensure safe passage to maturity," say the project organisers.

The approach aims to highlight critical issues of:

• Creating a health-enhancing environment for young people's development that engages all sectors of civil society in the development of their sexual and reproductive health,
• Empowering young boys and girls towards responsible sexual health decisions, and c) providing health support services oriented to the special needs of young people.

"A three-phase initiative directed at delayed and safer sexual initiation in urban areas is planned that will establish YPRH as a national agenda, test effective combinations of behavior change strategies in small areas, and finally translate strategies that promise to be effective and sustainable onto a national scale. Thus, the primary strategic features of this proposal are sustained policy support, unified strategies, and active partnerships among a range of constituencies."

The project activities include:

• community-based partner training
• situation and response analysis
• skills building
• national baseline studies
• youth training

HIV/AIDS, Reproductive Health

This Project is part of the Southern African Youth (SAY) Initiative. SAY is a sub-regional HIV and AIDS initiative through which the United Nations Foundation (UNF), the United Nations Fund for International Partnership (UNFIP) and UNAIDS seek to support and scale up HIV and AIDS interventions among the youth of southern Africa.

SAY comprises nine independent projects located in eight of southern Africa's most severely affected countries, as well as a sub-regional technical support project (Telling the Story). Through the work of UN country teams, SAY aims to catalyse innovative and expanded national responses to the HIV and AIDS epidemic to meet the needs of the youth in southern Africa, especially girls, who are most vulnerable to HIV infection.

The Botswana project objectives are

• Delay the onset of sexual activity of single young people in urban areas
• Increase the percentage of young people who engage in protective behaviour against unwanted pregnancy, HIV, AIDS and STIs at the time of first sexual intercourse in urban areas
• Decrease the percentage of young people who engage in unprotected sex in urban areas