By Pamela O'Brien | Development Director
We have exciting news to report this month! Our flagship Learning & Leadership Center in Kafue, Zambia, the Amos Youth Centre (AYC), has received follow-on funding from the USAID Youth Excel Research-to-Change program that will help us bring an end to period poverty in our community.
Through our winning proposal, titled "Unleashing the Power of Knowledge: A Multi-Media Approach to Inclusive MHH Education for All," the Amos Youth Centre will create a storybook addressing menstrual health and hygiene (MHH) challenges identified in the first research-to-change project. In the first project, we formulated, tested, and iterated different community-driven solutions for changing the cultural and social taboos surrounding menstrual health and hygiene. The USAID Youth Excel: Our Knowledge, Leading Change program tests and adapts solutions to strengthen menstrual health and hygiene management for girls' education through youth-led “research-to- change” (implementation research) approaches for positive youth development.
This storybook will support girls and young women dealing with MHH issues across different environments such as schools, homes, and communities and it will also empower boys to become champions for girls too. The book will be adapted into both a braille book and an audio book format so that visually impaired children and youth and those who low literacy levels in hard-to-reach areas also have exposure to MHH resources.
AYC’s Reproductive Health Access Initiative (RHAI) is a 4-year-old program that provides adolescent girls and young women ages 9-25 with a safe and friendly environment to access reusable menstrual products and reproductive health information that they would otherwise go without. The RHAI distributes menstrual hygiene products, i.e., reusable menstrual pads, reusable menstrual cups and period underwear, through product training and menstrual and reproductive health educational workshops and seminars.
Here are our project goals:
This six-month project will only be possible with a lot of effort from the team in Zambia, including paid youth interns who will help us conduct research in the community. We hope you will stay tuned for the end result!! This work is truly ending period poverty and changing lives through access to education!
Thank you for continuing to support our work!
Links:
By Julie-Anne Savarit-Cosenza | Co-Founder and Executive Director
By Julie-Anne Savarit-Cosenza | Co-Founder and Executive Director
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can recieve an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
Support this important cause by creating a personalized fundraising page.
Start a Fundraiser