Responding to the needs of adolescents in sexual and reproductive health and rights

This project seeks to support a resilient health system to respond to adolescent sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) needs in select communities in Dinajpur and Netrokona Districts of Bangladesh. It takes a comprehensive approach to advancing SRHR by going beyond health services to address gendered inequalities discriminatory social norms and institutional structures. These structures limit access to sexual and reproductive health services and promotion of SRHR in Bangladesh. Project activities include: (1) providing training on environmentally safe gender-responsive and adolescent-friendly sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services and supportive supervision to health facility workers; (2) training community health workers on gender-sensitive and adolescent-friendly SRH or maternal newborn and child health services. These services include family planning sexual and gender based violence referrals men’s engagement and healthy behaviours; (3) launching a psychosocial care program to guide adolescents in decision-making psychosocial health and SRH gender based violence (GBV) and provide mental health referrals; (4) supporting local communities to undertake community-led action plans to address community-specific SRHR barriers and concerns including child early forced marriage gender-based violence and teen pregnancies; and (5) supporting the promotion of adolescent friendly comprehensive sexuality education including GBV issues and a welcoming and safe school environment for all adolescents in local schools. The project directly seeks to reach an estimated 210 937 people and 450 000 indirectly.

The expected outcomes of this project include: (1) improved delivery of quality gender-responsive sexual and reproductive health services to vulnerable adolescents and young girls (ages 10 to 24) in Bangladesh; and (2) increased use of gender-responsive quality sexual and reproductive health and rights services by vulnerable adolescents and young girls (ages 10 to 24) in Bangladesh.