Aiming High: 10 Strategies for Meaningful Youth Engagement
Practical guidelines for meaningful youth engagement for the use of programmers, policymakers, civil society and others.
Young people aged 15–24 account for 40% of new HIV infections globally. Cultural expectations of ‘appropriate’ behaviour and norms around discussing sexuality often make access to integrated HIV and SRHR services difficult for young people.
Compounded by stigma and discrimination, imbalanced power dynamics, gender inequality and lack of confidentiality, young people living with and affected by HIV are particularly likely to be excluded from SRHR programming and policy.
In this brief we provide practical guidelines for meaningful youth engagement for the use of programmers, policymakers, civil society and others who wish to work with young people in an inclusive and equitable way.
Examples of how the 10 strategies can be applied, drawn from the Link Up project, are given in five areas of meaningful youth engagement in sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and HIV integration. These can be adapted and applied to any level of decision-making and programming.
Watch our film on meaningful youth engagement (French version link below)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96R2R7E5McY&feature=youtu.be
This article was written as the International HIV/AIDS Alliance, before we changed our name to Frontline AIDS.