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

5 core principles of this approach
  • It is youth led from inception
    to implementation
  • It is a collaborative effort between Government, NGO partners, and community members
  • It has the potential to have a
    catalytic impact
  • It is cost-effective
  • It is scalable and replicable
    ​across geographies      ​

We demonstrated this methodology with the RKSK scheme in Jharkhand. 

We developed 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 tested 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 Impact

Based on the intervention’s on-ground impact, one of the intervention’s biggest success indicators has been the Jharkhand Government’s official approval of the scale up of the interventions. ​
​​A 88​% adolescents 
in intervention areas reported that they could articulate their priorities to adults, compared to 25% in non-intervention areas
​

A 100% improvement was observed with respect to quality of records & systems maintained by frontline workers at a community level, post the project's intervention.
A 52% increase in knowledge about availability of youth friendly sexual and reproductive health services among adolescents aged 15-19 in intervention areas, compared to 41% in non-intervention areas

 A 67% increase
in the number of adolescents actively participating within village-level community meetings was observed, compared to 22.8% in non-intervention villages

​
​
​3x more adolescents began attending Adolescent Friendly Health Clinics (AFHCs) as compared to non-intervention areas

Our Phase 2 Report is now available

Get a quick overview of what we collectively achieved in our second round of AHWDs conducted in December ‘22.

Through the Ab Meri Baari Youth Solutions Project, we completed over 132 AHWD events that reached more than 12,000 adolescents in Dumka and Simdega districts of Jharkhand. We trained 250+ Peer Educators and 340+ Front Line Workers to conduct these events in the most impactful manner.

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

1.
​Equipped Frontline Workers

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

​2.
Promoted Peer Educators to lead

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

​3.
Created awareness in the community

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

4. Redesigned the AHWD

We redesigned how AHWDs are conducted. We built 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 supported Peer educators and Frontline workers to conduct sessions with ease, even when it came 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, Director, Programs and Policy Engagement 
Saba Rehmani
Youth Advisor
Phula Kumari
Youth Advisor
Anisha Sharma
Youth Advisor

Project Partners
“I am very proud to be a Peer Educator because I was one of the few girls in my village who were selected for this role. This boosted my confidence.”
Shilpa Kumari
Peer Educator, Dumka
“When it started they (Peer Educators) were not able to speak, but now, not only are they able to speak, they are even able to teach the other children.
I am very happy my children are able
​to do so much ”
Bibiana Barla,
​​ANM, Dumka

​Way Forward

​We have incorporated our learnings and findings into our final recommendations to the Government, with the intention of it being scaled across state and central governments in collaboration with NGOs on ground.

We hope that this report will be useful for:
NGOs to use the approach to supplement their programs by identifying solutions, showcasing their potential impact, receiving feedback to improve them, and then documenting and preparing them for scaling through government implementation.
Donors to use this as a tool for identifying and supporting the most promising solutions from their investment portfolios.
Intermediaries to us as a framework to work with NGOs, donors, and governments to facilitate rapid, cost-effective interventions that identify promising solutions with the potential for scale.