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Tracking our Impact and reach for 2019 

If monumental was a year, it would definitely be 2019 for us at UYAHF!

As we make fast but firm steps into 2020, we look back with gratitude for the very fulfilling year 2019 that we have had with you.
As together, we diligently worked to improve the lives of adolescent girls and young women. In 2019, UYAHF traversed the country and the region with some of our activities vibrantly impacting districts of Kampala, Wakiso, Mukono, Mbale, Kyegegwa, Adjumani and Luwero in Uganda and Kenya, Malawi and Zimbabwe on a regional front.

Last year, we ignited the energy at the Youth Hub and had 160 change champions sign up to be members of the Hub. These have been very actively involved in driving positive change at community level and have fully benefited from the dynamic empowering and learning program that the hub offers.
 
In 2019, we also welcomed 20 vibrant youth advocacy change champions in Kyaka II refugee settlement who have been driving change at the grassroots; we were also excited to work with the Ministry of Health and World Health Organization and be at the forefront of key adolescent health policy advocacy processes specifically the sexual reproductive health policy and the national adolescent policy!
 
What great strides we made!
We would like to share more information on this but first, have fun as you get a glimpse into our 2019 in numbers!

Ann's story ignites conversation and inspires change among girls

At the start of 2019 we embarked on an ambitious goal to produce a bi-monthly comic series dubbed Ann's story. The comic carries a story of Ann "real name withheld" a 17 year old girl we met in Apuyo a Sub-County in Kyegegwa district. Ann narrated to us her ideal of the shame, stigma and discrimination she endured navigating her adolescence and interacting with real life challenges of accessing the right information to make her in making correct choices that would later influence her her life, her body and her future.

We were touched by her story and inspired to start the Ann's comic series that can be
accessed here. Today Ann's story has been read by more than 3000 school girls and the feedback we have got is that many girls relate to the story but most of them have been inspired to learn, stand up and speak on their right to SRHR information and services. 

Young People for Young People - We go where young people are. 

8600 Young people 12 – 25 years reached during both our school and community outreaches and engagements. These included in an out of school boys and girls from rural, urban and pre-urban neighbourhoods across all our operational districts in Uganda as well as in Kenya, Zimbabwe and Malawi.  

We have steadily grown in documentation of our work. 

89 blogs and articles published on our website, blog sport and other platforms. Additionally, we published 2 policy briefs, conducted 3 assessments and compiled our findings into reports and we published 2 position papers all in line with our work. These can be accesses here.

 

Reaching every adolescent girl with reproductive maternal and child health services and information 


We conducted 12 young mother’s forums conducted and 620 young mothers, pregnant girls and girls at hight risk of early preganancy have reached The young mother’s forums on safe motherhood target adolescent mothers and girls at high risk of early pregnancy. The forums have been used as a platform for dialogue, learning, service delivery and referral for girls to basic safe motherhood services and information like; antenatal care, health facility deliveries, family planning, safe abortion and post abortion care, breastfeed, nutrition, immunisation among others. Additionally, we have successfully established 5 functional, community based young others clubs in Mbale, Katwe, Kawala and Kyaka II.
 

Growing Stronger together.

The impact we registered in 2019 could not have been possible without the support of our strategic partners. Our work has been greatly influenced by strong partnerships with over 50 partners spanning from, communities, CSOs, coalitions, donors, UN agencies and several government of agencies.


 

We've gone digital and we are strongly growing. 

Technology has increasingly become sustainable and most effective tool for reaching many young people globally. At UYAHF we have invested heavily in using communication technology to reach more young people with information and services delivered by through our programs. Our social media presence in 2019 strongly improved reaching over 150,000 people across all our social platforms.

We are building capacity of youth led organizations

In 2019, we mapped 109 youth led and youth serving organization across 49 districts in four countries of Uganda, Kenya, Malawi and Zimbabwe.
We have since then supported these organization to develop organizational capacity assessment and capacity improvement plans. About 60 of these organization have also benefited from our advocacy capacity trainings.
We are in a process of finalizing a one stop digital mapped where information on all these organizations will be easily traced.

Working with young people to achieve UHC through delivering an adolescent responsive health care system

In commemoration of UHC day on 12th Dec, we worked with MOH, WHO Uganda, the Africa Youth Network on UHC, the Global Civil Society Engagement mechanism on UHC and UHC2030 to organized the National Adolescent Health Accountability Round table on UHC that attracted more than 100 young people. In preparation for the day, UYAHF sent out UHC Day advocacy letter to key policy makers calling on them to keeping the promise and deliver on UHC2030. The advocacy letters were particularly sent to Hon. Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng the Minister for Health, Dr. Diana Atwine the Permanent Secretary Ministry of Health and Dr. Yonas Tegegn the WHO Country Representative calling on them to keep the promise for equitable and quality health care for all leaving no one behind. The advocacy letter also bore a strong call on leaving no adolescent and young person behind and emphasised the need for Uganda to invest in health care systems that respond to the specific needs of adolescents and young people.

We are championing youth led research and evidence generation

As a youth led and youth serving, policy advocacy and social accountability focused organization, evidence is one of the greatest tools that we use to build a case of our advocacy to improve quality health and wellbeing for adolescents. In 2019, we undertook several youths led research and assessments on Universal Health Coverage and adolescents, Teenage Pregnancy and Child Marriages in Refuge Settlements, status of youth friendly services among others. We were able to compile our findings into published reports. Additionally, we published policy briefs on various topics ranging from adolescent contraception, ICPD among others.

We are proud to boost of a growing network of change champions supported through the Youth Hub.

In 2019, we ignited the energy at the Youth Hub and had 160 change champions sign up to be members of the Hub. These have been very actively involved in driving positive change at community level using the practical knowledge, skills and networks acquired from the dynamic youth empowerment and learning programs that the youth hub offers.
 

Books Before Babies Campaign empowers school girls to speak out against teenage pregnancies, child marriages and poor menstrual hygiene.

This ground-breaking campaign saw us conduct 52 school outreaches in 2019 reaching 7000 adolescent boy and girls in school. The campaign was challenging the teenage pregnancies, child marriages and poor menstrual hygiene as key drivers for school dropouts for girls. The campaign provided information for girls and boys on how to prevent and manage teenage pregnancies, child marriages and menstruation. Many girls reached reported being more confident to confront these barriers and make the right choices.  

Young people hold accountable policy makers to influence policy change. 

As a policy advocacy and social accountability organisation we know that policy makers have the power to deliver the change that change we advocate for. Through our policy advocacy work, we have worked with over 50 policy makers including members of parliament, ministry officials from ministries of health, education and gender, development partners from CSOs and UN, district official among others to influence and shape policy discussions at national and district level on various policy processes we have been working on like; the review of the national adolescents health policy, the review of the national policy for SRHR, the National sexuality Education framework and the FP2020 Commitments and the RMNCAH Sharpened Plan.
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Uganda Youth and Adolescents Health Forum (UYAHF)
 
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Uganda Youth and Adolescents Health Forum · Plot1238, Off Bukoto Road - Bukoto 1, UCB Zone - P.O.BOX 25914 · - · Kampala · Uganda