Building effective and replicable solutions
​with young people

Importance of youth participation in developing youth solutions
At Dasra, through our engagements with 5M young people and over 250 youth-serving organisations we have found that working with young people can help identify the right challenges, and build relevant, desirable, agile and effective solutions. 

Efforts to develop and strengthen youth programs can be significantly more effective if they are centered around the choices and motivations of young people and include young people in creating solutions that impact them.
For example we have learned that young people are not very comfortable talking about sexual and reproductive health with adults (parents and/or field workers). Hence including young people to peer educate and lead programs not only hands over power but also enhances the comfort of youth participants that are part of the program.

We are using a new transformative approach to identify and strengthen one component that has the potential to enhance the whole solution​. We call it the Catalytic Component Approach

3 core principles of this approach
  • Youth engagement and participation in the implementation of the solution 
  • Ability to replicate the solution in a way that is mindful of different contexts 
  • Ability to achieve overall scalability across locations

We are demonstrating this methodology with the RKSK scheme in Jharkhand. 

We are developing innovations in the Adolescent Health and Wellness Day (AHWD) component of the National Health Program (RKSK) in partnership with National Health Mission, Jharkhand & a set of NGOs and young people.

​These are events that bring together adolescents, frontline workers and community members to provide health related services and information through sessions, workshops and counselling. We are testing the innovations to AHWDs in Dumka & Simdega districts.
We have collaborated with an amazing group of young people from the communities and the following implementation partners to bring this to life — CINI & Quest Alliance.

Our Phase 1 Report is now available

Get a quick overview of everything we have managed to collaboratively achieve and learn from the work done in the field between May-Nov '22.

As of November 2022, we have completed 65 AHWD events that reached 4,850 adolescents in Dumka and 2,425 in Simdega districts. The event included informative sessions, fun activities, sharing spaces, and health check-ups.​

4 ways in which we are strengthening the Adolescent Health and Wellness Days (AHWDs)

1.
​Equipping Frontline Workers

Government health workers like the ASHAs, ANMs, Health and Wellness Ambassadors are the key people who are responsible for delivering AHWDs. We are working with them to identify challenges and strengthen government guidelines that will support them to understand their roles more clearly in conducting AHWDs.

​2.
Promoting Peer Educators to lead

Peer Educators are young people who take up the responsibility of educating other young people. We are equipping the Peer Educators cohort with leadership skills and the right capabilities for them to lead AHWDs. Simultaneously, we are creating spaces within the scheme for them to participate more meaningfully.​​

​3.
Creating awareness in the community

We are testing ways in which we can create more awareness around the importance of adolescent health and their leadership in communities. We are testing how Peer Educators and Frontline Workers can come together to advocate for their communities to prioritise their health and well-being and attend the AHWD events.

4. Redesigning the AHWD

We are redesigning how AHWDs are conducted. We will build a standardised agenda of what should be covered during these sessions - from conducting screenings, to facilitation material about the topics to be discussed, to the games being played! This will support Peer educators and Frontline workers to conduct sessions with ease, even when it comes to discussing sensitive topics.

Our Advisory Group

Dr. Zoya Rizvi
National Health Mission, MoHFW, Deputy Commissioner
Nayan Chakravarty
Jhpiego, Chief of Party
Kim Longfield
Databoom, Founder and Principal
Priya Varadarajan
Durga, Founder; Co-Impact, Program Manager
Prabhleen Tuteja
The YP Foundation, Executive Director
Deepshikha Ghosh
The YP Foundation, Lead Adolescent & Young Feminist Leaders
Saba Rehmani
Youth Advisor
Phula Kumari
Youth Advisor
Anisha Sharma
Youth Advisor

Project Partners
"By being in front of others and doing this, I realised that I can do this and going ahead I can do even more. I hope many others get this opportunity and that the program reaches so many more places where RKSK doesn’t yet exist."
Nisa Kumari
Peer Educator, Simdega
“Through this program we are hearing young people’s voices. They would not speak openly before but the questions they are being asked and the activities they are now doing is making them comfortable and increasing their confidence in speaking up. I am very happy to see that.”
Subani Bhengra
​BTT Worker, Dumka

What we hope to achieve with our efforts this year 

An increase in number of adolescents that are satisfied with services at the AHWD
More adolescents accessing services at the AHWDs 
Higher awareness ​amongst adolescents on the topic of health and well-being
An increase in participation​ of adolescents within community level forums, meetings, leading sessions, etc. 
An increase in leadership abilities of adolescent peer educators