Giving Compass' Take:

• Population Youth Services (PSI) is planning to deploy 500 young people, (along with technical experts) to help coordinate adolescent sexual and reproductive health and rights programming around the world.

• PSI shares some lessons it has learned along the way in youth-based health programming, emphasizing the need to elevate youth voices for impact. How can donors support this mission?

• Read more about building a youth-centered approach to healthcare.

The statistics underscore the urgency.

Across sub-Saharan African, two in five girls still have an unmet need for modern contraception–despite decades of concerted efforts across the public health community to evolve and adapt how we approach adolescent sexual and reproductive health and rights (ASRHR) programming.

And we believe it’s, in part, because young people’s voices usually inform but have rarely meaningfully co-created the solutions that serve them.

Through PSI’s youth-powered programming, we’ve learned that by working with and for young people, to co-design alongside diverse experts, we can reimagine how adolescents and youth perceive and access modern contraception, and drive toward a future in which all young people can dare to dream.

That’s why PSI is pledging to identify, train and deploy a corps of 500 young people from around the world with the skills to co-design and implement ASRHR programs alongside technical experts—all by 2030.  These Youth Fellows will be employed as practitioners in programs within and beyond PSI, working as researchers, analysts, advocates and community-level champions who can counsel teams on how to apply meaningful youth engagement (MYE). And, through intergenerational and peer-to-peer mentorship, they will be supported to develop the confidence and skills needed to successfully influence and deliver public health programming.

With young people at the helm, we’ve made substantial inroads (and still know, we’ve got a long way to go) in what it takes to reframe modern contraception as relevant, valuable and accessible.

And through it, we’ve captured the learnings that you too can apply:

  • Start with Her Goal, Not Ours 
  • Aim to Serve the Whole Girl – and Go Where that Leads Us
  • Adapt and Fail Forward
  • Bringing Care Closer to Young People
  • Elevate Youth Voices 

Read the full article about elevating youth voices by Melissa Higbie and Amy Uccello at PSI.