Youth-led collaborations in the Get Up Speak Out project by the Malawi SRHR Alliance

Youth-led collaborations in the Get Up Speak Out project by the Malawi SRHR Alliance

Get Up Speak Out (GUSO) was a five-year programme (2016-2020) developed by a consortium consisting of Rutgers, Aidsfonds, CHOICE for Youth and Sexuality, Dance4life, International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and Simavi. The programme was financed by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs under the SRHR Partnership Fund.

The programme addressed the following problem: “Young people do not claim their sexual rights and their right to participation because of restrictions at community, societal, institutional and political levels. This hinders their access to comprehensive SRHR education and services that match their needs and ability to make their own informed SRHR decisions”. The GUSO consortium addressed this problem in seven countries: Ethiopia, Ghana, Indonesia, Kenya, Malawi, Pakistan and Uganda. The change that was envisioned is that all young people, especially girls and young women, are empowered to realise their SRHR in societies that take a positive stance towards young people’s sexuality.

The purpose of this operations research was to examine how country alliances were implementing the newly defined strategy of youth-led collaborations, identify good practises that could be shared across different alliances and programmes, and note what lessons could be learnt for future iterations of the strategy. Two countries, Uganda and Malawi, were therefore chosen, based on their reported progress and good practises according to outcome area 2. The intention was to examine and document these countries’ progress and shared learnings.